With a vengeance
by A-Karana
Summary: Trent Kort was the first victim to be tortured and killed. Others are following and the connection is obvious but impossible. Who would kill for information about the dead Jenny Sheppard? And why?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Silence**

When he arrived with his team at the crime scene he thought it was a crime scene like every other. Except it wasn't. It would change him forever. But he didn't know that back then and neither did the rest of his team. Even his so famous gut remained silent for once.

They found him sitting on a chair, his body still tied to it while his hands were locked in handcuffs. There was blood on his face, showing it had been dripping from his mouth, his ears and even his eyes. The identity of him had been revealed before they had even arrived at the crime scene, so it would be clear why the FBI was taking an interest in the case as well. Trent Kort wasn't nobody after all. Hadn't been. Now all he was, was dead. Decomposition of the body showed that his dead body had been rotting on this chair for at least a week already before he had been found. The storage area at the empty Navy base was a good hiding place, considering that it had been closed for renovations which wouldn't start for months.

"What can you tell me, Duck?" he asked the medical examiner he had known for over a decade.

"It is indeed our friend Trent Kort, Jethro," the elder man in the blue jumpsuit confirmed what he already knew. "Considering the odd bleeding from his ears and eyes, without any indication of trauma, has me convinced that a full blood test will be necessary to see if he was poisoned."

"David, DiNozzo? What have you got?" he asked impatiently now that he was addressing his inferiors.

"There are drops of blood everywhere. He must have bled and walked and bled and walked. It doesn't make any sense, boss," his very special agent told him, sounding confused.

He looked around the room and followed the blood around. Tony had been right. It didn't make any sense. There were spots on the plain concrete floor, where the blood must have formed a puddle before drying into the gray ground. Then there was nothing. No drops, no spatter, no marks. Then it started again, another large spot of blood- this time on Kort's discarded jacket on the floor. Again nothing. Then bloody hand prints on the white wall. His inner eye could see Kort stumbling along the wall, bleeding, using his hands to stop the bleeding and support himself against cold plastic surface at the same time. Another spot on the floor. Urine, he could smell it. _Captured_, the word flashed up in his mind. _Tortured_, followed right behind.

"Boss, I found his cell phone," McGee interrupted his thoughts by addressing him.

"And?" He wasn't one for praise or obvious questions. As long as there wasn't anything useful on the phone he didn't give a damn.

"It seems the last thing Kort used was the internet browser on his phone. It was still open," the agent started, slightly stuttering because of the harsh treatment he received. One look of the icy blue eyes was enough and he started talking again, faster than before. " He wrote an email to a woman named Jillian Cronin. She appears to be his girlfriend." Now that was slightly more interesting. Really interesting, to be honest. Without a word he took the cell phone and squinted at the screen so he could read the message._ I just want you to know that I love you. I won't be back. I'm sorry. _

The message surprised him for several reasons. For one he had never pegged Kort for the guy who swore his undying love to a woman. Also, he couldn't picture him loving someone. The guy had been a constantly lying bastard, that's what had made him so good at his job. And what might have got him killed.

What irritated him most though, was the fact that Kort had used his cell phone to write one last email, but hadn't called anyone for help. Had his captor typed? Was there a secret message in the words? And why torture a guy and then let him say goodbye to the woman he loved?

His gut still didn't talk to him, didn't tell him that all of this didn't make any sense. That something was off. Instead his intestines filed all of this under "Will make sense later, when thoroughly investigated" and that was that.

"Ziva take photos of the whole room in detail," he ordered. Just in his head did he add 'So Abby can re-create the scenario later'.

"On it, Gibbs," came her reply. She had learned not to ask him unnecessary questions.

* * *

The interrogation of his girlfriend had been long and thorough and had given them zero answers, but more questions. He had expected another undercover agent, instead he had found a kindergarten teacher who hadn't the slightest idea what he lover had been doing. In her world he had been a police officer. It hadn't been a total lie.

Her grief was real, he could see it. Her four year old son was just as devastated when he learned his kind-of-stepfather was dead. Poor kid. He couldn't picture Kort with children. He had obviously been wrong. Still, he had his agents check out the woman and every aspect of her life. He even made McGee hack into the CIA and FBI databases again to check if she was maybe so deep-cover that even he bought it. She wasn't. Just a real kindergarten teacher with a real four year old and real grief.

She hadn't had checked her email when he had questioned her and when they had made her log onto her email account and she had found Kort's last tears had been very real as well, dripping on his shoulder and soaking his shirt. Crying women made him uncomfortable and she was no exception. Awkwardly he had patted her back, in what had seemed an effort to console her to his team.

Abby had been next. Without a bullet she had had the time to test the blood and urine found at the crime scene and she confirmed that it was indeed Kort's blood. And his urine. And his hand-prints on the wall. His fingerprints on the cell phone. His hair woven in between the robes that had tied him to the chair. His sweat on the handcuffs. His DNA all over the room. Only his. Like he had done it to himself. He hadn't though- couldn't.

Ducky's findings had been equally inconclusive. There had been no wounds, no hematomas, no bruises, except for those from the robe and the cuffs, no burns or any other obvious signs of torture. No sign of poison either, at least not one that the medical examiner had thought of testing for so far.

"I did however find this," Ducky said in a voice that let him know there was something strange coming his way. He looked at him, raising his eyebrows as a sign of attention and curiosity. "Nearly all of his organs failed at one point or another. First his kidneys failed, then must have somehow started working again. Then his liver started destroying itself, then stopped. The kidneys again, then the liver. The liver failure caused massive inner bleeding, which explains him crying tears of blood. In the end he drowned on his own blood. It was a slow and rather painful death."

"What does make organs fail, then start working again, then make them fail again?" he asked his colleague, without the slightest inkling of what his answer could be.

"My best guess is still poison. I suspect he was given the antidote before the damage was too great. Then he was poisoned again." It was the most unlikely cause of death he had ever been given.

"With what poison?" he asked half outraged, half dumb folded.

"At this point, my dear friend, I can't even tell you how the poison was administered." The doctor shrugged helplessly.

"Call me when you know," he barked at him, frustrated with him now because he couldn't give him the answers he needed.

He didn't leave that day or the next, and neither did his team. The result remained the same: Zilch. Kort's last assignments had brought up nothing, his cover hadn't been blown, his life had been normal- for a guy like him. Looking into all of his enemies from the past would take time, he knew that. He didn't like it. He knew that whoever had killed Kort was a pro and was looking for something. Kort had been killed for information. They were always tortured and killed for information- for what else?

His mood got darker the longer the case remained open and unsolved.

Two weeks. Fourteen days. 334 hours to be exact. That's how long it took until another body appeared. And his gut was still silent.

**TBC

* * *

**

**My first real NCIS story. The idea has been in my head for months and I thought I'd give it a try.I will tweak a few facts along the way, twist some things into knots and change one or another timeline. This has been done and hasn't been done, as far as I know.  
**

**You might have noticed that I am working without a beta reader on this story. Also I am no English native, so sorry for all possible mistakes.**

**I hope you liked it and keep reading. Maybe even leave a review. Thank you!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

I have to admit that I was slightly stunned watching last weeks episode with the cause of death being "Liver failure because of poison". Talking about coincidences. However in this story you wont find any. Because there aren't any.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Nauseous**

The first victim, Trent Kort, he had known personally. The second, the Rose, he knew only from pictures.

He had seen her back when they had run the operation against the Frog. Blonde, tall, beautiful and Irish. Back then she had still been involved in the international arms trade. Now she was lying dead on the floor in front of him.

Blood, by now dark and crusty, had been coughed up from her lungs, had run from her eyes and dribbled out of her ears. He could still see it, but he also knew it because Kort had looked the same.

This time there was no cell phone, only a notepad on the floor with blood spatters on it. The page that must have been written on was ripped out of it.

He looked around, looked for evidence, but couldn't find any other in the bare shipping container that sat abandoned in the harbor.

"Same killer, Duck?" he asked although he already knew the answer.

"It sure looks that way, Jethro," the medical examiner replied. "But judging by the scratches on her face and the marks on her hands I'd say she put up quite the struggle. Hopefully that will give us DNA," his friend was more hopeful. "Now look at this," he said then and pointed to the stomach of the victim, where her hand lay.

He stepped closer and saw the tiny piece of ... something. He carefully picked it up with his gloved hands and held it up in front of his eyes to see what it was. A piece of a photograph, just barely as long and wide as the fingernail of his pinkie.

Yet, that tiny piece sent his gut into overdrive, punched it, squeezed it, made him dizzy, nauseous and on high alert, all at the same time. Because he knew that picture and he knew that coat and the tiny glimpse of the scarf that gave it away for him.

"They were showing her a picture of Jenny," he said aloud and could have slapped himself for it a second later.

"Jenny? As in Director Sheppard?" DiNozzo followed his train of thought and walked over to him, stepping around the body on the floor. He stood by his side and looked at the piece of the picture, cocking his head to one side, then the other. "Boss, I can't even tell you what that is. A painting? The green, green grass. For all I know this could be a piece of a playboy cover," the agent said, only seeing the piece for what it was: A piece of a photo that showed nothing but something green with a speck of something yellow and brownish on the side.

"That's a picture of Jenny. That's her green winter coat and that's a scarf she bought in Paris," he insisted, knowing he was right. _I bought that scarf for her. I'd recognize it everywhere._

"Jenny has been dead for years. Why would someone torture and kill to get information about her?" Ziva asked quietly and something in her eyes made him suspect that she had a feeling about this case. The flicker of recognition was just as fast gone as it had come.

"I don't know Ziva, but we will find out. " He spoke with a confidence that he did not feel, but need.

* * *

In the evening he stood in his basement, sanding another boat in slow strokes. His mind kept wandering back to the piece of the photo and the scarf he had seen on it. Finally he put his tools down, since they refused him the usual salvation that day. Instead he walked up to his attic, knowing exactly where he would find the box he needed. The last time he had held it in hands had been when he had fetched the photo of Jenny in front of the house in Serbia.

The box held memories of their past, of their lives as colleagues, lovers and boss and subordinate.

He had never opened it again after she was dead... until this moment. Looking at the pictures was hard and he felt a wave of grief rolling over him and engulfing him. He just wished he'd... There was the picture he was looking for. It had been taken in Paris when they had been sitting in a small café in Montmartre. He remembered taking it while she had held up her cup of coffee, swearing that this was the best coffee she'd ever tasted. The picture that had been meant to be a proof of her love for coffee was proof in a murder investigation now.

"We were really happy back then, Jen'" he said quietly, as if she was standing beside him. So long ago. They had really screwed this up, the both of them, and for that the name 'Jenny' was linked closely to the word 'regret' in his mind.

He closed the box again and took the picture with him. He turned it around so he was only looking at the blank white back of it. Seeing Jenny's smiling face was hurting too much.

* * *

"Ah, Jethro, I just wanted to call you," Ducky said the next day when he walked into the autopsy room where the newest victim was propped up on one of the autopsy tables.

"Something new?"

"I found bruises that suggest that she was paralyzed before she was poisoned," Ducky explained. "Look, here you can see the mark." He showed him the spot.

"If the killer knew that spot, it shows that he must have had training," he knew. Paralyzing someone by pressing on a nerve were things that needed training, lots of it, and he knew very few people who could kill and torture with just a few moves and in a way that no one would be able to detect later. Some spies. Some martial arts gods. Assassins. Ziva.

Before his old friend could reply he was hurrying out of the room.

"Abby wants to see you!" he heard him yelling after him and changed directions from the elevator to Abby's lab.

"What have you got Abbs?" he asked her.

"Oh, Gibbs, there you are. Did Ducky tell you or did you know I wanted to see you? Because sometimes I swear you..." He cut her off. "Oh right," she stopped. "I found water, mineral salts, antibodies and lysozym on the paper sheets you brought in," she told him proudly. He looked at her incredulously, not understanding what she was talking about. "Tears Gibbs, someone was crying," she enlightened him.

"Most people cry when you torture them," he remarked dryly.

"But it wasn't the Rose who cried. There was someone else in the room, maybe even the killer. And the DNA says that it was a woman. Same DNA we found under the fingernails, by the way," she went on and showed him the test results on her computer screen. To him this were just colored bars on the screen.

"Any hits?" he asked, motioning with his chin in direction of her other PC.

"No, she's not in our DNA database," Abby replied in the negative.

* * *

That was as far as they got on the second day after they had found the second victim. And on the third day. And the fourth. And the fifth. All those days his gut kept him up at night. He felt constantly nauseous, because something was nagging at him. Something, he couldn't quite put his finger on. They had hit a dead end again, at least for now. As in Kort's case there were just too many possible suspects to check out and too many people to interview. Other agencies kept stone walling them, because something just always screamed 'secret op' with these two victims.

He kept twirling the picture between his fingers, still only looking at the white back of it while he sat at his desk and stared blankly ahead. Thinking.

"That the photo, boss?" Tony was being his usual nosy self.

"Yeah," he nodded and stopped twirling it, so his three curious agents could take a look at it.

"I know the picture. Jenny showed it to me when we were running an op in Syria," Ziva smiled wistfully, remembering her friend. That's when it clicked in his head and he could finally make out what his gut had been telling him all along.

"Jenny had a copy of that picture and I do. So, how the hell did the killer get that picture?" he basically yelled at them, angry at himself and them that no one else had thought of that before.

"It's really easy to make a copy of a picture boss," McGee pointed out, but his gut told him that there were no copies. Why would Jenny make copies of a picture where she stuck out her tongue, while a large coffee cup was covering half of her face?

"There are no copies and all of Jenny's stuff should have been lost in the fire," he disagreed forcefully.

"Maybe she gave it to someone," Ziva said.

"Or maybe someone stole it before the fire," Tony had another theory.

He couldn't explain it, but the nausea was back, stronger than before, and he knew he needed answers to get rid of it.

"Tony, Ziva, I want to know what happened to Jenny's stuff. Find me her will, her lawyer, anything. McGee, I need all files about the Rose, about Kort and about Jenny. Everything you can find. GO!"

"Boss, we went over Kort's files a thousand times and her files are just as extensive. It will take us months to go over everything," The former probie said and sighed when he saw his death stare. "I will download everything I can find about director Sheppard," he nodded then and hurried to his PC.

"Boss, what will you be doing?" DiNozzo asked him and earned himself a slap on the back of the head with that question.

"None of your damn business," he growled and left.

* * *

The way to her house was longer than he remembered. From the outside it looked intact, except for the black smudges on the facade. It hadn't been renovated or sold and he didn't know why. He hadn't been here since he had burned the place down with Svetlana's body in it.

Carefully he opened the police seal that still locked the front door. He just cut in half with the knife he was carrying. He was a federal agent after all and had every right to do that- at least he kept telling himself that.

The air still smelled of smoke, burned wood, dust and death. Cautiously he looked around, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness. He looked up the black walls, to the place where the wooden stairway had been and to the right into the former living room. Everything was burned to ashes and it struck him at that second that this was all that was left of Jenny and her life: Ruins and ashes.

When the memories of what the place had been flooded his system he felt like weeping for a moment, but then he looked down to the floor and froze.

On autopilot he reached for his gun and turned off the safety. Quietly he followed the footprints on the ash covered ground into the former study. Leaning against the doorframe, so he was still hidden by the door, he remembered the last time he had been in there, remembered when Mike had killed Svetlana, when he had taken Jenny's letter addressed to him that held nothing more than his name, when he had set the place on fire.

He lurked around the corner, trying to see something. He heard a quiet rustling sound and pushed the door open forcefully, his gun drawn. He took another step forward and nearly stumbled over the body on the floor. Glancing down and saw two more bodies lying next to it.

He didn't have the time to process it though because next thing he knew, he saw a shadow to his left and then he ducked for cover because bullets were flying around his head. He felt on striking his shoulder, another one grazing his leg. He made it behind the desk that had miraculously survived the fire, that had started only inches away from it. It was black and burned, but it was good enough as cover. When he lurked out behind it, to take a shot himself he found himself alone in the room with the three bodies. He stared in the face of the burly black male, then looked at the other two while still ducking behind the desk. Headshots, all three. He knew the pattern, knew the wounds. This hadn't been done by a shooter in the room, but by a sniper somewhere outside that window on the left side of the door.

With shaky hands he pulled out his cell phone and called DiNozzo for backup. He knew if he would get out behind the desk and even attempt to flee he would end up like them, with a bullet in the head.

While he waited he looked around, tried to take the details in and see if he wasn't reachable from the windows. He kept listening for a sound, but everything was silent.

When his glance went up to the desk top he saw something familiar. Slowly he reached up and pulled the soft material of Jenny's silk scarf down to him.

He was hit by two realizations. One: It still smelled faintly of her. Two: Whoever had just shot at him, had not only a picture he had taken of her, but also had had the scarf he had given her. The question that remained was : Why?

**TBC**

**Theories as to what's going on are welcome and appreciated!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for the reviews!

Let me just point out that this is no supernatural story, so the ghost of Jenny won't kill anyone.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Messages**

When they had arrived he had still been ducking behind the desk. Only after they had made sure that there was no more danger, he got out and everyone got to work. Ducky had first tended to his wounds, which were only flesh wounds. So, in true Gibbs fashion, he had refused any further treatment, knowing he would just drink away the pain with bourbon later that night.

The pathologist had brought Mr. Palmer along, McGee started bagging and tagging, DiNozzo took pictures and looked for clues and Ziva was out in the night, doing god knows what.

"You think this was the same killer, boss?" McGee asked while he put Jenny's scarf into a plastic bag.

"Do I look like a damn fortune teller, McGee?" he asked and hoped he kept the longing out of his eyes as he watched the cloth that still smelled like her being bagged.

"Liver temperature suggests that these gentlemen have been dead for less than an hour," Ducky said, still looking at the thermometer.

"DiNozzo, you're with me. We're gonna take a look around," Gibbs decided, knowing that the cause of death was more than obvious and all there was to find in the study McGee would find.

His agent merely nodded and followed him, plastic bags in hand. He seemed stunned into silence by the obscurity of the location they found themselves in.

He knew that DiNozzo had been here before, during the time Jenny had him go undercover. And now they were both back here, in the ruins of her house, while she was dead.

"Pay attention. Don't step on the footprints," he ordered him unnecessarily, because the original prints were buried under the shoeprints of the team by now- at least in the entrance area and the study. The prints would guide them from there. He opened the door and they stepped into the kitchen. Both made a noise of surprise when the room was clean and white sheets were thrown over the furniture.

"Exactly how burned was this house, boss? I thought it was completely destroyed on the inside," Tony said quietly, the surprise audible in his voice.

"That's what I thought," he nodded and walked further into the room. Carefully he lifted one of the sheets and glanced underneath.

"The kitchen must have been spared," Tony commented when he looked at the furniture as well.

"No, smell it," he pointed out. His trained nose had picked up on it instantly.

"Fresh wood. This is new kitchen furniture," the agent caught up with him.

"Exact replica of Jenny's old kitchen," he nodded. Curiously and carefully they walked around the kitchen, but couldn't find anything else other than the odd fact that someone had installed a completely new kitchen in Jenny's burned down house. From the kitchen they made their way to the dining room, which was as burned as the rest of the house, with the exception of the kitchen.

The shoeprints led them to the ruins of the stairway.

"Boss, you can't seriously want to go up there?" Tony exclaimed when he set a foot on the first step to test its stability.

"Killer went up there and must have come down alive again," he stated and climbed the stairway, one step at the time. He heard DiNozzo muttering under his breath as he kept following him.

The doors to the bathroom and two guestrooms were open. The fire seemed not to have reached the second floor, as the furniture was only covered by dust and ashes, but otherwise intact.

"Looks like she will come back any moment," he heard Tony whisper behind him. The comment stung, because the younger agent had said out loud what he was thinking.

Following the shoeprints on the floor again they saw that the killer had looked around the rooms, going from one end of the hall to the other, walking a few steps into the rooms and then turned around again. They ended in front of the closed bedroom door, and he put on a fresh set of gloves before he pushed the handle down and opened the door.

The dark wooden four poster bed was still there and so were the night tables and the red lamps on it. The bookcase stood as if nothing had happened on the left side of her bed, the large sideboard still standing along the same wall with the antique lamp on top of it.

Her closet to the right of the door was standing open, showing the incredible amount of clothes and shoes Jenny had accumulated during her lifetime. All of that didn't matter, though.

The only thing that earned more than a brief recognition in his brain was the bed. He stepped towards it and lightly placed a hand on one of the posts. It was made, and he knew only too well that the day Jenny had died her bed hadn't been made. _Damn woman never made her bed_.

He had come here one last time after Svetlana had been taken care of. It was where he had said goodbye to Jenny, because it was the room, beside the study with the dead body in it, that had held the most memories for him.

The sheets and the patchwork blanket covering it were familiar. New was the open hymnal which was placed in the middle of the bed, with a tea light and a single lily.

"That's just creepy," Tony commented and he would have liked to slap him, but he was already on the other side of the bed, picking up the hymnal. "This page is all corrugated," he observed and handed the book over to him. Out of an impulse he opened the first page of the book, while making sure that the other page remained still open.

"Jennifer Sheppard, in honor of the first communion" he read aloud the signature that announced the owner of the hymnal. The script was curvy and child-like and he suspected that Jenny had had this book since she had been a little kid. He went back to the page that had been left open.

There were doodles on the page which Tony had described as "corrugated", but they were old and faded. As he looked at the lyrics of the hymn, he found that he knew them. They hit him like a ton of bricks and stole his breath.

_When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,_

_when sorrows like sea billows roll;_

_whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,_

_It is well, it is well with my soul._

_Refrain:_

_It is well with my soul,_

_it is well, it is well with my soul._

_Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,_

_let this blest assurance control,_

_that Christ has regarded my helpless estate,_

_and hath shed his own blood for my soul._

_(Refrain)_

_ My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!_

_My sin, not in part but the whole,_

_is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,_

_praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!_

_(Refrain)_

_And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,_

_the clouds be rolled back as a scroll;_

_the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,_

_even so, it is well with my soul._

He read over the text several times, blinking against the tears that were pooling in his eyes. He was damned if he would start crying now.

"They played this at Jenny's funeral," Tony remembered and sounded as chocked up as he felt. To save his composure he thrust the book in the hands of his agent.

"Bag it and don't forget the other stuff," he ordered snidely and walked off into the bathroom that was connected to the bedroom. Nothing seemed out of place at the first look, but upon closer inspection he saw that Jenny's perfume was missing on the shelf, where it had always stood. Looking around the corner he found it shattered in the shower, mingled with something that looked like blood. _Must have cut herself_, he though. Slowly he crouched down in front of the open shower stall and could still smell the perfume, which meant that the bottle hadn't been broken too long ago. He reached out to touch one of the shards, but pulled his hand back quickly when he saw something odd out of the corner of his eyes. On the shower wall, halfway covered by a towel hanging over it, was written something he couldn't read. He pulled the towel off, not caring that he was destroying a crime scene and possible clues.

**לַעֲזֹר לִי**

It was written in blood, slightly washed off and already dry.

"DiNozzo!" he yelled as loud as he could, his voice echoing in the bathroom. "Get me Ziva in here! Now!"

"Boss, what did you..." Tony didn't get much farther because he yelled again.

"I said NOW!"

He couldn't take his eyes of the message on the shower wall, stared at it, as if it would start translating itself. "God damn it, Jenny, what is going on here?" he asked helplessly into the empty bathroom. He was past confusion by now. If he had had any confidant nearby he would have admitted that for the first time in years he felt vulnerable and scared- and it didn't make any sense. He had no reason to be scared, even if he had been shot at. Deep down he knew that if the shooter had killed the three guys downstairs, his injuries had been on purpose. One had meant to scare him, but not to kill him.

He leaned forward again and squinted at the bloody message. He thought he saw something, but wasn't sure. Stepping into the shower he paid attention not to step on the shards and leaned forward again. On the tiles he could make out a round spot that looked different. McGee would have to take a photo of it and swab it.

"Gibbs? I found six bullet casings in the neighbors garden. Looks like someone left in a hurry," Ziva reported when she stepped into the bathroom and found him standing in the shower, staring at the tiles.

"Come here," he waved her over and stepped aside so she could see the writing on the wall. "What does it say?" he asked her.

"La'azor lee," Ziva read quietly. She halted, looked at the words again and her eyes widened, as if she only now understood what the message said. "Eykh, neshomeleh?" she asked in a whisper and added "Izri lanu!"

"Ziva!" he barked, annoyed that she seemed to talk in Hebrew now, when she knew he couldn't understand her.

"It says 'Help me'," she finally told him and had to clear her throat before speaking. Seeing her reaction and remembering her whispered words his gut suddenly started screaming again. He needed to know what was going on. Now. For Jenny and her memory, he wouldn't let it get desecrated right in front of his eyes.

**TBC

* * *

**

I apologize in advance if the Hebrew is incorrect. I don't speak Hebrew and had to rely on internet translations, which are often wrong.

Also I thought about it, if I should give you the trabslations or not, simply because Gibbs doesn't know what it means and it is a story from his point of view. However I decided, that it wouldn't hurt or destroy the story. Just maybe give you one more hint.

La'azor lee means 'help me',

Eykh, neshomeleh means 'How, darling?'

Izri lanu means 'Help us' (addressing a woman)

Again: Theories are welcome!

Happy Halloween!


	4. Chapter 4

So, I hope you're still with me.

The plot thickens and I can only hope that in the end everything will make as much sense to you as it does in my head.

**Chapter 4: Tears**

He stepped completely out of the shower and turned so he trapped Ziva between the glass of the shower stall and his body. Staring down into her eyes he tried to read her. For a second she looked scared and sad. Then her training kicked in and her eyes were devoid of all expression. Calmly she looked back at him and held his gaze.

"What do you know, Ziva?" he asked her, still staring her down. He got no reaction from her, not even a flicker in her eyes.

"What are you talking about, Gibbs?" she asked back.

"Don't lie to me Ziva!" he said and grabbed her by the shoulders, stepping even closer. "What did you see that day when you saw Kort? What did you see at the second crime scene? And what is this?" he hissed and pointed with an outstretched arm to the message in blood.

Ziva held his gaze a moment longer, then lowered her eyes and sighed deeply. She looked torn and unsure, he noticed.

"I... I don't know..." she started and he realized that she had tried lying to him, but couldn't go through with it.

"Ziva, what is going on here?" he asked another question, a desperate undertone in his voice now and the anger gone.

"I am not sure," she said slowly and looked him in the eyes again. "However I know the set up. I know the poison, I understand why the first two were killed with poison and these three with a shot to the head," she admitted. "It's the way we did it all the time. You want information you torture them and then kill them. You want to make a hit or get revenge you kill them without that they even see you. Especially when you are outnumbered," she explained like she was telling him a secret.

"You think that the Mossad is involved in this?" he wanted to know. He believed her.

"Or someone trained by Mossad, yes," she confirmed his suspicion.

"Do you know who is responsible?"

"My father," she said and he knew that she was aware that ultimately her father was always responsible.

"If this had been your op and you had done it this way. What would you have been after?" he asked her the question that was bothering him the most. He just couldn't find a motive.

"Information, maybe revenge," she shrugged and he finally stepped back and gave her her private space back.

"On what? And for what?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"I will try to get some information when we're back at NCIS," she replied, not having an answer to his question. He knew that she was still holding something back, but he was sure as well, that she wouldn't tell him at this point.

"I just hope you know who you can trust," he told her and reminded her of her past failures.

"Believe me, Gibbs, I know," she replied and this time she spoke the truth.

* * *

A day later at NCIS and after another sleepless night spend with bourbon and his boat, he and the other team members were standing in front of the plasma screen, looking at the pictures of the three dead men.

"The first is called Jordan Amos, has been in and out of prison his whole life. Spent the last eight working as a hit man. Second is Igor Novitzka, originates from Poland and has been suspected to work for different Russian mafia operations. He was their go-to guy whenever they needed someone eliminated. Third is Thomas Jennis, nickname Teej. He and Amos met in prison and it seems he started working for him once they were both out," Tony summed up what he and Ziva had found.

"Anything that links them Kort or the Black Rose?" he asked.

"No, nothing. But because everything seems to be coming back to Jenny I dug a bit deeper, while Ziva was calling home, and found a connection to Viggo Drantyev. He and Novitzka used to work together in Russia," the senior field agent added with a disapproving glance in direction of Ziva's desk.

"Drantyev is one of the hit men who killed Jenny," he knew, remembering the name.

"It is possible that these three were somehow involved in the hit on Jenny. The timeline always suggested that there were more people involved and that others killed Sasha, Decker's girlfriend, back then." Tony remembered the facts of the buried case.

"Someone sure did their homework if they were able to make the connection," he muttered, nearly impressed with the work of the killer. "Where's Ziva?" he asked then and looked around, noticing only then that she still hadn't shown up.

"Last time I saw her she was talking to her aunt Netti," Tony ratted her out.

"Her aunt?" he asked surprised. He sure had thought Ziva had other sources than her eighty year old great-aunt. Her felt his temper flaring and looked over to his third agent, who was typing away at his keyboard. "McGee? What about those files?" he asked him impatiently.

"I'm trying boss, but still nothing," the agent admitted and rolled back with his chair when he suddenly stuck his head in front of his screen and was so close that he could feel his breath on his face.

"Find me those files!" he ordered and walked off, hearing McGee's breath of relief while he walked away.

* * *

In Abby's lab he found her standing in front of her machines as usual, the noise she called music blaring and making his ears ring. With swift strides he walked to her stereo and switched it off what made her turn around, a scowl on her face.

"Gibbs, where's my caf-pow?" she asked and only then did he realize that he hadn't brought her her favorite bribe in a while. Not since this case had started.

"Maybe later if you have something for me now," he said, making her pout. She snapped out of it a second later, remembering that she indeed had something for him.

"I do!" she exclaimed and pushed some buttons, showing him the rundown of some chemical stuff he didn't understand. "This is the analysis of the spot you found in the shower over the blood." she said, pointing her screen.

"What it is?" he was annoyed that he even needed to ask the question again. His mood was not the best since it was clear that there was someone out there killing with a connection to Jenny.

"It's L'Occitane Rice Ultra-Matte Face Fluid," she told him and held up a white bottle of said fluid. "Pretty expensive stuff."

"How did it get on the shower stall?" he asked his next question.

"I thought about it and by the look of the spot and the lines that were visible on the high resolution pictures McGee took, I can show you," Abby grinned and opened the lotion. Quickly she smeared some on her face and then went over to the glass doors that separated her lab from her office. He followed when she waved him over. "What must have happened is this: She dropped the perfume in the shower, then cut herself when she wanted to pick up the shards. Judging by the amount of blood, I'd say nothing too severe. She must have been in the shower when it happened and what she did then is strange. She leans forward, resting her forehead against the glass of the shower stall. And she cries. The glass was covered with tears. Next she uses her bloody finger to write the message on the wall, her blood mixing with her own tears. That's how the spot got on the glass."

"Good work Abs," he complimented. He tried picturing the scene but came up blank. What stood out to him however was that the killer sure seemed to cry a lot.

"But, Gibbs, I'm not done!" Abby protested when he wanted to leave already.

"Her tears were also on the book you found in the bedroom, and on the pillows. We also found hair on the sheets and the same fluid, meaning she slept in Jenny's bed." That information really creeped him out. The only one who should sleep in Jenny's bed was Jenny...his gut stirred again.

"Thanks Abs," he said, deep in thought already.

"I'm still not done!" Abby cried. "Why are you in such hurry to get out of my lab? Do I stink?" she wondered and sniffed her armpits. That actually made him smile a bit.

"You don't stink Abby," he replied truthfully.

"Because she was leaning against the glass and because I can tell where she was standing in the shower I can also tell that she's 5'5. Same height as Jenny, by the way," Abby told him with a smile and he was sure he knew what Abby's mind had made up. Problem was his seemed to think in the same direction.

There was only one man who could help him now and so he went to the autopsy room. The M.E. and his assistant were working on one of the hit men they had found. His friend turned around and read the look of his face.

"Mr. Palmer, could you give us a minute?" he requested and the younger man only nodded and left without a word of protest. "Jethro, how can I help you?" he asked then.

"These three here might have been involved in Jenny's death. Abby found proof that the killer is a woman, 5'5, slept in Jenny's bed and used her shower. I know that she also renovated Jenny's kitchen," he summed up what he had learned.

"That is most fascinating. Do you want me to created a psychological profile?" his friend asked him and seemed to analyze this in his head already.

"What I want to know, Ducky, is: Is Jenny really dead?" he asked and tried to keep himself from hoping that, maybe, she was still alive and shooting her way out of her deep cover now.

"I'm afraid she really is, Jethro. I autopsied her myself and I can assure you that I am not involved in any ploy to have her go undercover. Jennifer Sheppard is dead, as sad as that is and as much as I still miss her." The answer and the truth in Ducky's eyes destroyed all hope he had had for just a second.

"Me, too, Duck," he admitted and then left, before his friend would try to console him.

* * *

He went to get a coffee before he walked back to the bullpen and took a large sip before he faced his agents again. Ziva was still gone.

"Boss, I think we've got a problem," McGee called as soon as he saw him.

"What?" he barked. He was so fed up with all the dead ends and the evidence that just kept piling up but led them nowhere.

"I can't find anything," his agent told him helplessly.

"What do you mean you can't find anything?" he was outraged. Did he have to do everyone's job?

"All files on Director Sheppard have been deleted. Officially she never existed," McGee explained and he could only stare at him. "I tracked every access to the database and could at least find out from what account it was done," McGee hurried to explain.

"And?" DiNozzo asked this time, sounding just as pissed as he felt.

"It was Director Sheppard herself. She logged on in LA from her hotel, after she left Decker's funeral and destroyed all proof of her own existence." The computer geek went in for the kill and he really had to sit down. How many more secrets had Jenny kept from him and taken to her grave?

* * *

**TBC**

**Thanks for reading.**

**Tell me about your theories!  
**


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you for the theories you sent in. I think this chapter will shed some light on what is going on.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Last call**

He sat, stared and thought for a while. Tony and McGee were silent as well, just as overwhelmed with the new developments.

"What about Jenny's bank account? What happened to all her money? With that house she had, I always figured she must have inherited quite a lot. And as director you don't get paid too badly, either," Tony spoke up after a while of sitting quietly on his chair.

"All of her money was sent to an account in Switzerland, where it was withdrawn three days after she died," McGee had already checked that.

"By whom?" he asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.

"By a Jennifer Sheppard," the computer genius knew.

"Maybe she's still alive," Tony went down the same road as he and Abby earlier.

"You were there at the diner, Tony. You found her body," he pointed out.

"There was no pulse. I checked," DiNozzo said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else.

"Is there anything left, McGee, anything at all?" he went on with the questions.

"I'm sorry, boss, but I couldn't find anything. She was very thorough and really deleted everything. I can't even find her birth certificate anymore. No bank accounts, no property, not even a parking ticket with her name on it," McGee replied in the negative.

"Can it be reversed?" Tony asked.

"No. One could create her identity anew, but only with a lot of effort and with her alive and breathing," the younger agent informed him. "Why?" McGee asked.

"I'm just wondering what would have happened if she had survived. She had deleted everything, which meant she wouldn't have existed anymore. She couldn't have stayed Director of NCIS without an identity," Tony explained his train of thought.

"Maybe she never intended to come back. Or she didn't want to take any chances that whatever she was hiding would be found out," he spoke up and then thought again. They had nothing left. All the files were gone, articles erased, her house burned down, all of her possession... "What happened to her stuff?" he asked suddenly, while the other two were deep in thought again.

"What stuff, boss?" McGee couldn't follow.

"Her car, her house... her stuff," he explained and got again, paced the room back and forth like it would help him finding answers.

"I don't know boss. By the time she was dead she officially didn't own anything anymore, so I guess it all went to the state at some point." He couldn't help him.

"What about the stuff we had? What was found at the diner?" he went on, knowing in his gut that he was on the right track now. if the stuff was still there, they might have something to work with, If it was gone this was all an inside job and they would have to find answers inside the agency.

"Found it boss, " McGee said after typing like a manic. He breathed out in relief. They had at least something. "Her clothes, her gun, the jewelry she wore and her cell phone never got picked up. It's all still in evidence," McGee grinned.

"Locker number?"

"209," he said, and all three hurried over to the elevator.

* * *

Seeing her bloody clothing was hard. It didn't smell like her anymore, which unsettled him and he remembered the smell of her perfume in the shower and on her shawl. There were more bullet holes in them than he had expected. He had never looked at her again after she was dead, he had only seen the photos of the crime scene. Carefully he lay out her blouse and the jeans, and placed the still dusty boots on the ground. She had been dressed like the old Jen' that day, the one she had been before she had become director. The one had been in love with- but then he had always loved her, no sense in denying it now.

Her jewelry was in one plastic bag. Her small earrings , her large watch with the golden wristband and a golden ring she had worn on her right hand, that looked like to joined wedding bands.

The last items the bag contained, were her gun, her badge and her blackberry.

"Not much to work with. Her purse isn't here," DiNozzo remained skeptical.

"It's all we got," he refused to give up already. "DiNozzo, take her clothes and her gun to Abby. I want to know if there's anything on them that could help us. McGee, take her cell phone and find out who she had been talking to. I want every message, every call, everything you can still pull off that phone," he said and the two agents nodded and hurried off with Jenny's things, leaving only her jewelry behind.

Carefully he picked up her ring and held it up in front of his eyes and turned it in the neon light of the evidence garage. "What were you up to, Jen? And why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you trust me anymore? I would have helped you, you know. Whatever it was that you were involved in." he spoke quietly, aware that his voice was getting lost between all the evidence boxes.

He closed his hand around the ring and regretted that he had never exchanged it for an engagement or wedding ring. She would have been his last wife, he was sure of that. Not even the fact that Ducky had told him, she had been sick made him reconsider it. She wouldn't have been on her own and he wouldn't have left her side until the end. It wouldn't have been a lonely death in the middle of nowhere with only an older agent as backup. She shouldn't have died like this.

_"She was dying, Jethro. She knew the deterioration would have been rapid. Debilitating pain, loss of motor skills... As difficult as it is to say, this may have been more merciful.."_

Had she known that she would die that day? Had she even intended to ever make it out of there, he asked himself, remembering the M.E's words. He suddenly knew who he needed to talk to, to maybe get some answers to that question and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

"Probie, do you have any idea what time it is here?" Mike Franks grumbled when he answered his phone, that he strangely had turned on.

"Still, you're answering your phone," he pointed out.

"What kind of trouble are you in this time?" his former boss came straight to the point.

"It's late Mike, and I don't want to keep you from sleep with boring details. I need to know everything you remember about what happened after Jenny called you, before she was killed. Everything she said," he replied and leaned against the table where Jenny's clothes had been before, her ring still in his hand.

"That was what, five years ago and now you want me to remember?" he grumbled, but he could tell he was curious now.

"You know damn well that it's only been three years. Now tell me what she said. I need to know if she ever intended to get out of this whole thing alive," he explained at least a bit.

"She called me, told me to jump on the first plane out of Mexico. Then she explained what was going on and even told me about your black op from years ago," Mike started his tale.

"I'm not so much interested in the case, as more to personal things she said," he stopped him, knowing he had heard all the important details about the case before.

"First you tell me what's going on," Franks requested irritated.

"Someone is out there killing people involved in Jenny's old ops and her death. Killer even slept in her burned down house, had one of her shawls and an old picture of her. We have been checking all of her cases, but can't find anything when it comes to a connection or a motive. This is personal," he finally said it out loud. Whatever was going on was personal. It felt good to finally say it out loud.

"She said that she would stay in this diner, because this would end there. She thanked me for staying with her and I told her that she should thank me later, after it was over. She didn't say anything," Mike gruffly started. "Then she admitted that she had been relieved at first when she had heard that Decker had died of a heart attack. Said, she always feared this op would come around and bite you in the ass," he went on. "Said it was her fault and that she made choices she wasn't proud of." He paused. "Back then I had the impression she wasn't talking about the op anymore. I told her we all have regrets and she asked "Even Gibbs?" like she didn't believe you had any," Mike finally went on. It stung, that she had thought he didn't regret that they had never tried again, never got their second chance. "I told her that you regretted letting her go and she said you didn't, that you didn't fit into her plan."

"I should have fought for her later," he admitted and Mike was silent.

"I said she made her bed and she replied 'What if I don't wanna sleep in it?'" Mike recalled their conversation.

He turned her ring in his hand and rubbed over his eyes. The tears in them stung, just as much as it hurt to hear that she had been this unhappy right under his nose and he hadn't seen it.

"I asked her if you knew and she said that it wouldn't make a difference, because you only came back for the job. Told her that we talked about her on the boat," Franks admitted and he had to smile. At least she had known that he hadn't been indifferent about her.

"Anything else, Mike?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"I told her you could still make right an she fell silent and I told her about Maggie and my Harley."

He chuckled, knowing the story. "Then I asked her if you knew that she was sick and she tried denying it. Told her I had found the pills in her purse and went through her cell and her glove compartment as well," Mike recalled.

"Anything interesting in there?" Gibbs asked, seeing his chance.

"Just the pills," Mike destroyed that possibility. "She said that you didn't know and I asked her what she was waiting for. She said 'Good question', but her eyes were saying that she knew exactly why she didn't tell you. She wasn't ok with her choice, but she knew the reason," Mike explained what he had learned the day she had died.

"And then?" Gibbs prodded.

"She had found tea and said there was no water. Told her there was a water tank out back and she wanted to go out, but I told her I'd go," Franks came closer to the end of his story.

"She wanted to make tea?" he asked disbelievingly, glad his gut was talking to him again and telling him that that didn't sound like her. "She hated tea."

"She didn't want tea. She wanted some privacy. When she thought I was out she made a phone call. She spoke in a language I didn't understand and so I went to get the water. Then the shooting started," Mike finished.

"McGee is trying to track her last phone calls right now. Thanks Mike," he said and hung up, eager to get to McGee and tell him to try extra hard with that last phone call.

"Probie, watch out. If it's really personal and depending on the motive: You might be next," Mike warned him.

"I know, Mike, I know," he nodded and hung up. Quickly he put Jenny's jewelry back in the bag and took it with him, then he hurried out.

* * *

"Anything yet?" he asked in Abby's lab, where Abby and McGee were both working, while Tony stood beside them, fiddling with his phone.

"Not yet, boss," McGee replied and Abby only shook her head.

"I can't reach Ziva, she must have switched off her phone," DiNozzo sounded alarmed.

"She's trying to find something out. I think she knows something," he replied.

"And you're just letting her keep it to herself?" Tony looked disbelievingly at him

"She will tell me, DiNozzo, when she has something," he gave him a stern look.

"I found something," McGee said then and everyone looked at him. " She wiped her phone clean, deleted her contacts, everything, just minutes before the shooting. However she made one last call that she couldn't delete because it lasted throughout the whole shooting," McGee showed them the time stamps of the phone call.

"Who did she call?" He was nervous now, knowing this would be all or nothing.

"The bureau of the Mossad in Haifa, then was connected to another phone," McGee grinned.

"Mossad?" Tony asked and Abby glared at him.

"Let McGee finish, Tony. There's more," she lectured him.

"Mossad records every incoming call for safety issues. I'm downloading the file right now," the agent grinned.

"There you all are," Ziva walked, looking tired and worried.

"Finally back, Zee-vah," Tony said.

"Sorry, Gibbs, it took me longer than I thought. I didn't want to alert Eli that we are looking for something," she apologized and he noticed that she looked uncomfortable , like she wasn't sure how to tell him something.

"And?" he requested information now, otherwise he would want the whole story, right then.

"The blood trail started in Israel. First victim was Mossad officer Amid Hadar. They found him dead in his house, killed with poison," she informed them and he wrinkled his forehead. So Mossad really was involved.

"Wasn't that the guy who picked us up at the airport?" Tony asked her, remembering his trip to Israel after he had killed Rivkin.

"My father's right hand, yes," Ziva nodded and avoided his eyes. Finally he was able to catch her look and the expression in her eyes told him she knew even more.

"Got it," MCGee's cry of victory stopped him from asking more questions.

"Play it, McGee," he demanded.

_"Aiwa?" _The voice of a girl echoed through the room as she answered the phone. Judging by her voice she couldn't have been older than fourteen at the time.

_"Livvy, Anti uahida?" Jenny asked._

_"Aiwa."_

_" I need you to listen to me now and don't ask questions, ok?" Jenny switched to English." I don't have much time". _

_"Andik Muskhila?" the girl had picked up on the shaking in Jenny's voice, her own now small and scared._

_"You know that I love you more than anything, right? I want you to remember that. Always!" Jenny swore, and one could hear she was in tears by now._

_"Anti btachafni," the girl replied._

_"I'm scared, too. I might not get out of here alive and I'm so sorry for that . I always wanted to make it work... I screwed up so many times... but I tried... you wouldn't have been save," Jenny was openly crying now._

_"Eh? Ummi!" the girl sounded confused._

_"You do what I told you. No matter what, you stay save. I will take care of this and if it's the last thing I do. I will keep you save," Jenny said more to herself than to the child. "If I get out of here I will come to you. If I don't... do you remember the code?" Jenny asked._

_"Jenny, Ih el..." she couldn't get farther._

_"Do you remember that code?" Jenny asked again._

_"Aiwa," the child replied._

_"You stay where you are. If I don't come and get you, then you use that code. And don't trust anyone, but the people I trust with your life." Jenny instructed. "Don't believe everything they will tell you about me or others. Remember the Gibbs rules!"Jenny said this like she preached those words. "I love you, Livvy," she cried._

_"I love you, too," the girl replied in English for the first time. Suddenly there was a bang and they all jumped, knowing it was the door of the diner being kicked in. "Jenny?" the girl asked and then there were gunshots audible, groans, sounds of pain and death and the shrill cries of the child on the other end of the line. "Jenny?" she screamed the name this time and more gunshots were audible. Jenny yelped in pain, more shots._

_"Jenny! Jennyyyyy!" the girl yelled desperately and then the diner went silent. Jenny was dead. The call was ended and the recording stopped._

"Who was that?" Abby asked with a tear chocked voice. They were all still staring at the screen where the file could be seen. The question snapped them all out of their daze and he didn't need to look to know that he had goose bumps all over, the desperate cries of the child still ringing in his ears.

"Her name is Joelle Levi, she's sixteen years old now and she has been missing for about three months. Mossad believes that she killed Officer Hadar," Ziva slowly told them. She sought his eyes this time before she spoke again. "She's Jenny's daughter."

**TBC**

Aiwa- yes

Anti uahida?- Are you alone?

Andik Muskhila- Is there a problem?

Anti btachafni- You're scaring me

Eh? Ummi!- What? Mom!


	6. Chapter 6

I recently stumbled over the fact that it seems like Jenny's last name is actually written "Shepard". I was too lazy to check it on the show, but I will keep it "Sheppard" for the sake of continuity in this story. Hope that is ok with you.

And thank you for the reviews!

* * *

**Chapter 6: Secrets**

It was like the words Ziva had just spoken were manifesting themselves in front of his eyes, the script blurry, but with blinking lights that made him dizzy. Jenny's daughter. Jenny's daughter. Jenny's daughter. Jenny's daughter. Jenny's daughter. Jenny's daughter.

"Oh wow," Tony summed it up.

When the surprise slowly wore off the anger came and then quickly turned into fury. If Jenny hadn't already been dead he might have killed her that second. She had a daughter and had never told him. However she wasn't there anymore to be yelled at and so he turned to the messenger. His blue eyes were so full of uncontrolled rage that the assassin took a step back and involuntarily changed her stand, so she could fight off an attack.

"Why do I only find out about this now?" he yelled at her. A few times she opened her mouth and seemed to lose her voice or the words until she spoke.

"It was the only thing that Jenny ever made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone. And that didn't end after her death," Ziva said quietly, but with conviction. "I _swore_ I wouldn't tell _anyone_," she emphasized.

He knew she was telling the truth, but it didn't really quench his anger.

"Ziva with me, my office," he hissed and jerked his thumb in direction of the elevator. "And you find me that girl!" he ordered the rest of the team.

In the elevator he hit the stop button when it had barely started moving.

"What the hell were you thinking? You knew this all along and are only telling me this now? Swore, my ass. Jenny is dead, someone is killing everyone who ever had a connection to her and you sit on your damn promises," he went on yelling at her and couldn't keep himself from slamming his fist against the metal wall beside Ziva's head. She gave him the satisfaction of flinching. "Explain yourself," he went on, in a dangerously quiet voice.

"When I saw the set up I suspected that Mossad or some other highly trained agents were involved. But only when I saw the message in Jenny's bathroom did I make the connection. However, I thought it couldn't be true," Ziva defended herself. "I hoped it wouldn't be true," she added with more passion.

"You should have come to me when you first suspected," he barked at her.

"And tell you what? That maybe Jenny's sixteen year old daughter is out there killing people for god knows what reason? That the girl she died protecting is now a killer herself, because my father turned her into one and I couldn't stop him?" Her voice was shaking when she yelled at him this time.

"I want to know everything. Every detail and you better not leave anything out," he warned her and then flipped the switch again. For a few seconds they rode upwards until Ziva reached over and stopped the elevator again.

"If Mossad finds her, they will kill her," she said out loud what she was worrying about.

"Then we better find her first," he replied and flipped the switch again.

* * *

"Twelve years ago I met Jenny and Livvy for the first time. My father owed someone at NCIS a favor and they called it in by asking for protection for Livvy. Joelle Liv Sheppard became Joelle Levi and at the same time all traces of her existence were erased in the US. I don't know what made Jenny suspect that someone was after her daughter, but she sure wasn't taking any chances. " Ziva started telling what she knew, while the team sat in the real conference room to get briefed. Even Ducky, Palmer and Director Vance had joined them. "Jenny went back to work after some months, which she needed to get Livvy settled in. From then on she stayed with my family, mostly Ari's side," she went on. "When I came here she swore me to secrecy again and we never talked about it afterwards." She looked up to see if he had any questions, but he just sat there, taking it all in.

"Go on," he requested calmly.

"Jenny never wanted that her daughter had anything to do with Mossad. She said that she hadn't sacrificed so much in order to keep her safe, just to have her fight the war of others. But my father always wanted her for the agency. Livvy was bright, and a great athlete. What made her invaluable though, was her ability to detect lies. I have never seen anyone like her. Gibbs, your gut... she's better," Ziva said with a small smile full of admiration and Tony snorted.

"Jenny , didn't give in though," he knew.

"Neither did my father. Every time Jenny was gone again he trained Livvy with riddles that prepared her to decipher codes. She learned to build and disarm bombs instead of playing with Lego. He left her blindfolded somewhere in the wilderness and she had to find her way back. He raised her like he raised his own kids," Ziva recounted and kept her yes on the table because she didn't want to see the sympathy in the eyes of the others. "For Livvy it was fun, like an adventure game. She never had to torture small animals or shoot her own pets. He knew Jenny would find out." She ignored Abby's gasp of outrage. "When Jenny died however he suddenly had free reign. When I stayed in Israel last, after Michael's death, I saw her for the last time. She told me that Eli wanted her to go on her first Mossad mission, but that her mother had forbidden it. She was scared, I could tell, but I couldn't help her at the time. Before I left for my own mission she warned me. She said that my father wasn't a good man and that I should look out. She was right again," Ziva finished. They were all silent and took in what she had just told them.

"Twelve years ago... that's roughly around the time Jenny left me the Dear John letter on the plane," he spoke up, knowing that his team long knew about his prior relationship with Jenny anyway. And if they didn't know they were suspecting.

"I don't know if those two events were connected," Ziva replied and shrugged.

"Back then she didn't know Eli David and he couldn't owe her a favor. She must have had help," he went on, thinking back to the old days. "Who helped her hiding her child?" he asked, not expecting an answer.

"I did," Leon Vance suddenly spoke up and all eyes were on him suddenly. When no one spoke and everyone just stared at him, he elaborated. "Five years before she had been assigned to my team in L.A. for personal reasons. Turned out the personal reasons were a pregnancy. I kept her on my team as long as she could work, she went on maternity leave and shortly after she had the baby she returned to work. Then her father was dead and she came to me, saying that she knew it hadn't been suicide. Her father had made business with an arms dealer named La Grenouille and had screwed him over. Grenouille had sworn to destroy his family," Vance added his part of the story. "She was hysterical back then, scared for her daughter and that he would find out. So we took everything off the records to calm her and I told her that if she had any indication that La Grenouille had found out about her child she should come to me and I would help her. She did four years later. Eli owed me one and I called in the favor for her."

"She came to you? She was my probationary agent, then my partner, even during her leave for L.A. Why didn't she come to me?" Gibbs asked him.

"I don't know, she never told me. I always suggested however that her sudden transfer to L.A. had something to do with you," Vance said pointedly. And he was right. Before she had left for L.A. she had been his probationary agent and during a stake out one night one thing had led to another while he had still been married. He had told her he couldn't do this and she had left shortly afterwards. When she had returned to his team eight months later he had been divorced and she had been assigned his partner for an undercover mission in Europe. The dates and timelines suddenly slapped him hard in the face and fear settled in his stomach. Livvy couldn't be... Jenny wouldn't have...

_**"**__I've always admired your way with children. Ever think of having any?"  
__**"**__ Is that an offer Jen?"_

_"No, it wasn't an offer, Jethro. It was merely an observation."_

_"You know why I get along with kids so well? Because when they lie, they don't have the guile to get away with it."_

"Livvy's father?" he pressed out and couldn't even form a full sentence. It just couldn't be...

"I don't know. Birth certificate said 'unknown'," Vance replied, but the way he looked at him he knew he suspected the same thing. Looking around he realized everyone did.

"What do we do, Gibbs? We can't let Jenny's baby be killed by bad Mossad people," Abby asked.

"We need to find her," he repeated his earlier statement to Ziva.

"But how?" Abby requested and sounded helpless.

"We need to find out what she's planning next, maybe we can get her there," he thought out loud.

"I will call Eli and tell him that I want that girl alive. That way he knows we are looking for her and can't just make her disappear," Vance decided.

"I will see if I can find anything on Jenny's shawl and the picture. Maybe some particulates can tell us where Livvy was," Abby had her mind back on forensic evidence.

"Tony, McGee, go back to Jenny's place and see if you can find anything that might help us," he decided. "Ziva, you work with Ducky. I need a psychological profile on her so we can get into her head. Right now, you're the only one here who even knows her," he finished his instructions.

"Jethro, judging by what I heard so far, I feel obliged to point out that the girl is most likely scared out of her mind. In that condition she is a threat to others. With her training she will not hesitate to shoot if she feels trapped. If you find her, be careful," Ducky spoke up.

"Livvy knows me and I know her. She will not kill me," Ziva insisted.

"Ok, if you find her or think where she is, no one goes without Ziva," Gibbs decided, his feeling telling him that the new American was right. Everyone got up and left to get to their tasks as quickly as possible, except for him. The director was the last to leave and he stopped him before he could walk out the door.

"Leon?" he asked and his boss turned around again, closed the door behind him when he saw the expression in his eyes.

"Do you think..." he didn't finish the question. Vance knew what he was asking however.

"I don't know, Jethro. I always suspected... her initials are J.L. after all." he paused. "Then again, she looks nothing like you," the director said the last part with a small smile.

"All Jenny?" he asked.

"All Jenny. Except for her dark hair," Vance grinned, opened the door again and left the room.

**TBC**


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks to all those who review or put the story on their lert or favorite list. It's nice to know my first real NCIS story doesn't totally suck.

And I don't own NCIS. If I did Jenny would still be alive and kicking. Is it crazy missing a character on a TV show when you watch the new episodes without her? I just know I do.

* * *

**Chapter 7: Semper fidelis- Always faithful**

That night he fell asleep underneath his boat in the basement. There had been nothing left to do at the agency for him, and for once he had sent everyone home, hoping they would come up with new ideas how to find Livvy, once they had a full night's sleep.

He was far from resting peacefully though, his slumber haunted by memories of past conversations.

_**"**__Once upon a time I would have asked you to stay and I wouldn't have taken no for an answer."  
__**"**__No."  
__**"**__What happened, Jethro?"  
__**"**__You made a choice."  
__**" **__I had to do what was right for me. I still do."_

In his dream he felt her body so close to his and could see in her eyes that there was far more meaning behind her words than she let on. He should have seen it back then. He had seen it, if he was being honest to himself, but he hadn't cared, hadn't asked and hadn't dug deeper. His own pride had prevented it.

_**"**__What are you thinking about?"  
__**"**__ Paris."  
__**"**__Get your mind out of the bedroom, Jethro."_

Had she really thought that their affair had just been that for him- an affair? And lots of sex. Great sex, even, but that hadn't been all. He hadn't told her back then what he felt for her nor had he done it later. It had been just one more secret between them.

_**"**__You lost your protection detail in Paris. You went missing for 21 hours, where were you?"  
__**"**__You sound like a jealous husband."  
__**"**__ How would you know?"  
__**"**__ Don't touch that! It's scotch, you drink bourbon"  
__**"**__ So do you"  
__**"**__ I had another visitor, before you arrived unannounced."  
__**"**__Did he duck out the back?"  
__**"**__ Now you do sound like a jealous husband."_

_"What were you doing for 21 hours Jenny? "  
"What we used to do, ever so well."  
"When you lie your right eye twitches. It always has."_

She had tried to distract him and hadn't answered his question. He still had no idea where she had gone. Had she seen her daughter in Paris? Had she chased the people who threatened her?

_"You think my personal feelings about la Grenouille are clouding my judgement? You don't know what my personal feelings are!"_

_"Right, I have no need to know."_

He did he see the sadness and pain in her eyes upon hearing those words from him. Had she wanted to tell him and he had ruined it? She had tried to protect her child and he had lashed out at her.

_"This was careless! How many more lives are gonna be ruined before we bring in that monster?"_

_"How many have been ruined so far?" he asked her, but she didn't answer. The pain in her eyes was there again._

Four lives at least. Jasper Sheppard's. Joelle's. Jenny's. His. He was sure everything would have been different if she would have had her daughter with her. He would have known her, would have known if she was his child.

_"You don't need a degree in psychology to see that there's a history between those two. Something is consuming her, her every action, every thought."_

Ducky appeared in his sleep, his words having a totally different meaning now. The M.E. surely hadn't known back then how spot on his analysis had been.

_"How far are you willing to go to get this guy, Jen?"_

_"As far as you went to get Ari, Jethro."_

As far as to get killed while chasing him. In the end she had done exactly that- given her life for the safety of her daughter. And his.

_"There will be no off the job, Agent Gibbs ."  
"That's a shame. I missed you, Jen'."_

It had been the truth. He had missed her and even more wife's and women in his life hadn't changed that. Since she was dead he had one more person to grieve for. The difference only was that he had regrets about the way he had treated her in life, something he never had about Shannon and Kelly.

And god, did her miss her sometimes. When it got too much he got drunk in the safety of his basement, hoping that it would be gone by the time he woke up with a hangover.

What must Joelle feel? She had heard the death of her mother, was left in the care of Eli David. He couldn't possibly imagine how much she must miss her mother.

She missed her mother.

Suddenly he was awake and bolted up on the floor, forgetting there was a boat above him. He hit his head hard on the wood, but that didn't stop him. Joelle was missing her mother - that was the key. No matter how scared she was, or who was chasing her, she would try and find a connection to Jenny. That's why she had stayed at the burned house. She couldn't go there anymore, because the house was now under surveillance.

If they wanted to find her they needed to find the places that had held meaning for Jenny. Then they would find her daughter.

* * *

It wasn't the first time he was at a cemetery at night. After Shannon and Kelly had died he had always come to cemetery after night fell. Fewer people to run into, fewer to see your tears, fewer to hear you spill your secrets to your dead wife and child.

It was however the first time he went to Jenny's grave at night. He had stopped by occasionally, especially shortly after she had died and the guilt and anger had eaten him alive. Sometimes he wasn't sure he could ever fully forgive Tony and Ziva for not following Jenny. He knew how stubborn that damn woman had been, but they had been her protection details and they had failed at doing their job.

He was also still angry with himself for so many reasons. If he had done one thing differently, had acted differently just one time then she could still be alive. No matter what Ducky had said, he would rather be fighting some deadly disease together with her than have her lying on the cemetery.

"Hey Jen'," he said when he reached the small stone on the ground. The simple grey marble surely didn't do her any justice. For a moment he stood in the dark and looked around, as if Joelle would just walk out of the shadows and appear at her mother's grave.

"We found out about your secret. And I think Joelle wanted us to find out, otherwise she wouldn't have planted the bodies right on our territory. She must be one smart kid," he started talking. As quiet as he usually was, as much did he talk with the dead.

"Why didn't you tell me, Jen? I would have kept you save, the both of you," he asked into the dark. "Even if she's not my daughter- you should have told me, especially after you found out about Kelly. I would have understood," he went on. He crouched down in front of the stone, knowing he would stay for a while. With his right hand he softly touched the cold marble and let his fingers glide over her name. He felt something when he wanted to pull his hand back and looked closer. Hidden underneath the last golden letter on the stone was a small note of which just one edge stuck out and had touched his fingertip.

He picked it up and was glad that it was a full moon night, so he could at least see a bit in the dark. In curvy letters someone had left a message, and he knew who that someone was.

_Semper fi._

Jenny managed to surprise him again. It seemed like she had not only taught her daughter his rules, but also the motto of the Marine Corps. Or their daughter?

_Always faithful_.

He heard someone approaching and quickly hid the note in his pocket. He didn't get up, but simply remained in the same position, gliding his fingers over the stone one last time.

"I see we think alike, Agent Gibbs," a male voice said and it took him a second to realize that Eli David was standing in front of him.

"Director David," he nodded and stood up so he would have the height advantage. He had never trusted this guy one bit and knowing what he had done to his own children and to Jenny's made him furious. However, killing the Deputy director of Mossad wasn't a good idea .

"Seeing you here tells me that you don't know yet where to find her," David said, eying him carefully.

"Seeing you here makes me believe neither do you," he replied and didn't even try to hide how disgusted he was by his presence.

"She's good. Could have been the best we ever had -in a few years." He wished he could slap that cynical smile of his face.

"Her mother told you not to train her," he hissed instead.

"Her mother didn't see the potential she had. If she had looked at her with the eyes of an agent and not with the eyes of a mother for a second, she would have seen it, too." Eli David replied with his usual arrogance.

"That's what you did with your own kids? Looked at them with the eye of an agent? Maybe you should have taken a closer look as a father and they would all still be alive," he replied and walked closer to the smaller man, stared down at him.

"You took my only living daughter away from me," the Israeli said through gritted teeth. "Not so much fun anymore now that you know that I had your only living child all along, isn't it?" he suddenly grinned, like the thought had just occurred to him.

"Is she my child?" he asked calmly and raised his eyebrows. This was not about finding out the truth- Eli David was the last person one should ask for the truth-, but about taunting him.

"Who knows? Jenny Sheppard always had some strange rules about secrets." David still grinned and still held his ground against him. He didn't step back and neither did he break eye contact.

"Rule number #4," he nodded knowingly. "The best way to keep a secret? Keep it to yourself. Second best? Tell one other person - if you must. There is no third best."

"The only person she told was her daughter. And Joelle is smarter than her mother: She kept the secret to herself." Finally Eli David stepped back, then looked around. "And it looks like she won't tell us tonight."

"Maybe she'll tell me once you're gone." He had enough. If this guy wouldn't get out of his sight he would kill him, consequences be damned.

"If I were you, Agent Gibbs, I wouldn't try to find her. I would hide. Joelle is taking out everyone who failed her mother. I imagine your name and the names of your team are somewhere on that list as well," David warned him with a devious smile and then walked off into the direction he had come from.

"I just hope your name's on that list, too," he muttered and angrily stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. When the paper touched his fingers for the second time that night, a small, real smile appeared on his face. She was living by his rules; she was living by Marine rules- not by Eli David's rules. She wouldn't hurt the people her mother had loved. And more importantly: People who still loved her mother.

"I'll find her, Jenny," he promised. "And then I'll keep her save. For you. Semper fi, Jen'."

**TBC**


	8. Chapter 8

Here we go again...

* * *

**Chapter 8: Like hell**

"Hey Duck, I thought everyone went home last night," he greeted him the next morning when he was back at the agency.

"Everyone did, but I came back at 5'o clock this morning because the psychological profile you wanted kept me up all night," the doctor replied and tiredly sat down on his chair.

"Ziva gave you all the info you needed?" he asked him, not really sure how well Ziva really knew Jenny's daughter.

"She has been a great source, Jethro. Apparently Ziva and Livvy, as Ziva and Jenny call her, were really close until Ziva left for her last Mossad mission. She reminded Ziva of her sister Tali," Ducky nodded. "There was only one important question Ziva couldn't answer me," he went on.

"What?" he asked.

"If you are Livvy's father or not," Ducky said bluntly.

"Is that info really necessary for the profile or are you just curious?" he wanted to know with a small smile.

"I fear it is important, Jethro. Crucial, even." The answer surprised him.

"I can't tell you, Ducky," he shrugged. "It is possible. But why is it so important?"

"You see Jethro, Livvy was not trained to kill. She has the abilities, yes, but not the emotional strength. From what I gathered she is a very gentle soul, very compassionate and with an incredible ability for empathy. That's why she cried when she tortured her victims. In a way, she was suffering with them," Ducky started explaining. "However she did it, because she felt she had to do it. They knew something she needed to know. After the first three however she must have reached a stage where she doesn't care anymore if it is really necessary to torture and kill. She took out those three hit men simply because she could. She reached the stage of taking revenge and if that fits into her task, she will do it."

"So, she's not only after information anymore?" he summed up what he had just learned.

"No, she 's not. She's programmed herself to kill and that is dangerous. Depending on who else she blames for her mother's death, we all might be in danger, each and every one of us," the doctor said concerned.

" I found a note last night at Jenny's grave. It said "Semper fi", Duck'. She won't come after us." he shook his head and refused to believe it.

"Quite the opposite, Jethro. For you it's the Marine honor code, but for her it's most likely a promise her mother gave her. It meant they would face everything together, no matter what, just like the Marines. Now Jenny is dead and the poor child is alone. If she promises her mother to be 'always faithful' I fear she is well aware that she is avenging her death." He had to admit that Ducky's explanation made sense- and it scared him.

"Did you find out why she started this now?" he changed the topic, refusing to think about the danger longer.

"No," Ducky shook his head. "I know however something must have triggered it. Something that scared her so much that she even overcame her fear to kill, developed the ability to torture. That fear consumes her, like it consumed Jenny. However there's a difference," Dr. Mallard pointed out. "While Jenny was a woman on a mission, who had seen enough and done enough to not think twice about what she was doing, her daughter is scared out of her mind- scared of herself. That's why she wrote that message on the shower wall. It wasn't really meant for anyone. More a plea to someone out there in the universe to help her and save her- from whoever she is searching- and from herself."

"Any ideas where she might go next?"

"If Ziva is right Livvy doesn't know the city very well. She's been here last at Jenny's funeral, but only for a day. She would most likely seek familiar places at one point or another.

"Jenny's house and her grave," he nodded.

"Ziva didn't know what hotel she stayed in when she flew in for the funeral, but I think you'll be able to find out," he finished.

"Thanks Duck," he said and left autopsy to start the hunt.

* * *

When he reached the bullpen he just wanted to give out orders to his team when he saw a familiar figure climb down the stairs together with Vance. He felt Ziva tense beside him.

"Director David was kind enough to fly in to help us finding Joelle and to make sure she wouldn't get harmed," Leon told them and he needed only one look at Vance to know that even he didn't believe his own words.

"Yipee," Tony said sarcastically, not even trying to hide his aversion.

"Agent DiNozzo," Eli David greeted him with a small smile, like he hadn't heard the comment. "Ziva," he turned to his daughter, who was still standing beside him behind her desk. He actually stepped forward in an attempt to hug her. Ziva stepped away however and went over to where Tony and McGee stood with crossed arms. Like a protective bodyguard Tony stepped halfway in front of her. Surely Ziva wouldn't get into a fistfight with her father, but it was the gesture that counted. DiNozzo had been the one responsible for Ziva's rescue and he made it clear he wouldn't deal with any crap from her father again.

Eli David looked taken aback by his daughter's silence, but remained quiet himself. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife.

"I didn't mean to keep you from your work, Agent Gibbs," David said then, motioning with his hand for them to go on with their tasks.

"I wouldn't let you," he growled and decided to ignore him for now.

"McGee, Joelle attended her mother's funeral. Because we have no photo of her so far I want you to go through all the video footage of the funeral and find her," he instructed and McGee nodded and hurried off. "Tony, Ziva, find out where she stayed when she came for the funeral and get me a list of all places she might know in town." Again the two agents only nodded and went back to their desks. They didn't need to talk to each other, each knew what he had to do.

"Agent Gibbs, maybe I could help with something. I raised Joelle, after all," Eli David offered and glared in Ziva's direction when she snorted loudly.

"Thanks, Deputy Director David, but we got it covered," he replied overly friendly.

"Eli, we should get back to my office and talk about Joelle's past a bit," Vance intervened before the Israeli could speak again.

"Very well, Leon," he had to agree and the two men walked off again.

"The less he knows the better," Ziva hissed angrily in his direction, watching the two directors climbing the stairs.

"I agree," Tony mumbled and was by Ziva's side again.

He watched his two agents for a moment as they worked side by side at Ziva's desk and hoped that Tony wouldn't miss his chance like he had missed his with Jen'.

* * *

"Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs, we found her," Abby said later that day, while she clapped her hands and jumped up and down like an excited child.

"You found her?" he asked stunned and felt his pulse quicken.

"She means on the video, boss," Mc Gee clarified and he felt the disappointment settle in. "One of the news stations still had old footage of the funeral and we found shots of the guests who attended. At first we weren't sure, but she's one of three kids there," he explained their process.

"She looks like Jenny," Abby gushed and then blew up the background of the video that was playing. Zooming in, the face of a girl became visible. She wore large, dark sunglasses and a silk scarf hid most of her dark curls.

"One can't really see much, Abs," he said, disappointed for the second time.

"Wait for it," she just grinned and McGee fast forwarded the video to the moment when the mass had been over and all the guests got up. He saw himself standing at Jenny's casket, Tony, Abby, McGee and Ziva at his side. He saw the child walking up to the casket just as they turned around. She had taken off the sunglasses and was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. He walked right past her without even seeing her and remembered that he had been in a hurry to get out of there and away from all the people who were just pretending to grieve for Jenny.

The girl's eyes however were on him and she stared at him as he walked towards her and then past her. He saw that Ziva gently squeezed Joelle's hand as she passed her and that Joelle squeezed back.

"McGee can you roll that back again?" he asked and the agent did it. Again he saw Joelle walking towards him, staring at him. "Freeze it," he ordered and walked closer to the monitor.

She had Jenny's nose, Jenny's lips, even the form of her face was inherited from her beautiful mother. She had the same light tone of her skin, the same long lashes. And her eyes. She had Jenny's green eyes, that he knew so well. The expression in them he wasn't familiar with however. Never had Jenny looked at him with so much hatred in her eyes as the girl did in this picture on the screen.

He wasn't scared anymore, now that he knew for sure that his name was on her list. It only broke his heart- and it hurt like hell.

**TBC**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: A name**

"Wait, Abby, go back," he heard McGee say, but was still too much in his own head to react. He knew however, he needed to snap out of it.

"What is it, McGee?" he asked him and really had to concentrate to keep his composure.

"I was wondering the whole time who would let a thirteen year old go alone to her mother's funeral. But she's not alone," the agent pointed out. For a second a woman could be seen before Joelle walked up to the casket. "She is also sitting next to her," he went on and showed them the picture that had been taken during the mass.

"That's Noemi, Jenny's housekeeper," he recognized her immediately.

"Is she still in town?" McGee asked.

"I don't know. Find out McGee and get me her address," he ordered and left Abby's lab.

He couldn't bring himself to compliment them on the good job at the moment. The expression in Joelle's eyes was still too vivid in his mind. Needing a moment of silence he stepped into the elevator and flipped the switch, bringing it to an abrupt halt. He leaned back against the cold wall and closed his eyes. What had Jenny told her daughter that she hated him that much? How was a child her age even able to feel so much hatred? There was still the possibility that she was his child, too and he couldn't bear the thought that his daughter hated him. His daughter. He had never thought he would associate these words with any other child than Kelly. For a while he stood there and tried to calm himself down by taking deep steady breaths. It helped a bit and after several minutes he set the elevator into motion again.

* * *

"Boss, we already thought you were stuck for real this time," DiNozzo greeted him when he stepped out.

"Where's Ziva?" he asked, not answering the unspoken question.

"Bathroom. Her father left and she's pretty shaken," he got his answer.

"Gibbs," Vance interrupted their talk.

"Go, get her, Tony," he got another word in before the director had descended the stairs completely. "Eli David gone?" he turned back to the Director.

"Yes, once he realized I wasn't giving him any information," Vance nodded. "I'm feeling guilty for sending Jenny to him all these years ago. I should have picked someone else," he added then and he could see that he was being honest about his regrets.

"How did you even know him back then?" he wanted to know.

"I had worked with Ari for a while. That's how I met the family," Leon told him.

"I hope he stays away from here from now on," he said and the anger back.

"He was an exceptional agent. Did whatever needed to be done," Vance found something positive to say about Eli David.

"But he is not a good man. And an even worse father," ZIva, who just came back to the bullpen with Tony, said. She looked just as angry as he felt. His cell phone rang then and McGee told him the address of Jenny's former housekeeper.

"Ziva, Tony, you're with me. We're gonna talk to Noemi," he decided. Vance nodded, understanding why he took two of his against with him. It was simply too dangerous to go with only one of them.

* * *

Noemi lived in a small apartment building in the middle of the city. They stopped their car directly in front of it and then stepped out.

"Gibbs, maybe you should have stayed at NCIS," Ziva thought out loud. She looked worried ever since he had updated them on the newest developments of the case.

"If she kills me, she kills me. We, however, will not kill her," he emphasized again, mostly for DiNozzo's sake.

"I could never hurt her," Ziva replied.

"I highly doubt that," Tony disagreed. When she looked at him, not understanding what he was getting at, he spelled it out for her. "You killed your own brother, Ziva."

"Yeah, to save me, DiNozzo. And how the hell do you know about that?" he barked, both surprised and angry.

"Jenny told me. She knew," he shrugged.

"How?" he requested again.

"I told Livvy. She must have told Jenny," Ziva admitted.

"So much for secrets," he said disapprovingly. Automatically they got themselves into position once he rang the doorbell. Tony was standing behind him, Ziva beside him. It only took a moment until Noemi opened her door.

"Agent Gibbs, that is a surprise," she smiled when she saw him.

"How are you, Noemi?" he asked her, really interested how she had been since Jenny's death.

"I'm fine, thank you. I got married last year to an American," she told him.

"So I heard," he smiled back and then became serious again. He couldn't afford it to forget for a second why they were there. "Noemi, has Joelle contacted you recently?" he asked her and as soon as the girls name had left his mouth Noemi's eyes got wide and she looked torn.

"Agent Gibbs, I..." she started, and it seemed like she wasn't sure if she should deny it all or admit it.

"We all know about Joelle, Noemi," Ziva assured her.

"But the Senora always said that..." the former housekeeper started again and was this time interrupted by him.

"We need to know if she was here or has contacted you. It's really important, Noemi, she is in danger," he told her.

"Joelle came here two days ago and surprised me. I didn't even know she was in the country," Noemi finally spilled the facts. "She looked upset and she was scared, I could tell. She took a shower here, slept a few hours and then left again. She said her hotel reservation had been lost, but I did not believe her. Her eyes were so empty, Agent Gibbs. She scared me," she admitted.

"Did she tell you anything, where she might go or what her plans are?"

"No, she just said that she would not go back to Israel. I asked her about her school and what Mr. David would say to that and she told me that everything was taken care of," Noemi explained. "That's why I was very confused when Mr. David stopped by earlier and asked me if I had seen her."

"My father was here?" Ziva was alarmed. "What did you tell him?"

"I told him I hadn't seen her. I knew that was wrong, I shouldn't have lied, but there was something in his eyes... And the Senora always said that the less he knows the better," Noemi admitted panicked.

"It was the right thing to do, Noemi, don't worry," he calmed her. "And congratulations on your wedding," he added, because he couldn't remember if he had said it earlier already.

"Thank you Agent Gibbs," she smiled and they turned to leave.

"Noemi," Ziva stopped the woman from closing the door. "If Livvy stops by again or contacts you, could you tell her that she should contact me. My name is Ziva."

"Sure, Miss. Does she have your number?" Noemi asked.

"I'm sure she knows how to find me," Ziva replied and then they all left.

* * *

"Boss, while you were out I tried tracking Jenny's inheritance again. I was able to find something for the house at least," McGee said when they were all back in the bullpen.

"What did you find?" he asked while they all took their gear off.

"The director, former director, had her last will tied to a vault in Switzerland. She had to call them every three months with a certain password. If she didn't call a whole machinery went into action. All the instructions said however was that they were managing the property until someone else called the bank with yet another password. That password was the stop sign and every cent Jenny owned, as well as all property documents were handed over to the bank. The name of the one inheriting everything was yet secured by another password. Only the legitimate heir knew the two passwords," he summed it up.

"Joelle," he knew.

"Exactly. There is only one thing she did not inherit: The house," the young agent went on.

"Who did it go to?" he wondered.

"You, boss. You are the owner of Jenny's house," came the reply.

"I don't know anything about that. Obviously the plan failed, then," he said. Where was the sense in giving him the house when he never knew he owned it?

"It did not," McGee shook his head. "It said that you shouldn't be informed. Only if you called or went there and asked for the information, you would be told."

"Meaning you could only know if Joelle told you to go there," Tony made the connection.

"How do you know all that, McGee?" he asked him, already suspecting that he had hacked into some secret database again.

"I found the money Jenny had owned and then called the bank to ask for more information. When I said 'This is agent McGee of NCIS and my boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs wants to know' I was suddenly connected to another department and they told me all of this. Obviously your password was your own name," he grinned.

"Very clever Jen'... Not trusting me to figure out a damn password," he muttered and shook his head. He couldn't help but be amused by it, though, it was just so much Jenny to do something like that.

Around five they were all still going through every detail of Jenny's will, trying to find clues for other places Joelle might know in town.

"Hey, Zee-vah, can I ask you a question?" DiNozzo was the one who broke the silence.

"You can try, Toh-ney," she replied without looking up from her screen.

"I was just wondering why Jenny called her daughter Livvy, when her name is actually Joelle,"he said.

"DiNozzo, don't you have work to do? Her name is Joelle Liv, so it's just a damn nickname," he replied in Ziva's place.

"Actually Gibbs, you're only half right. Before she came to Israel Jenny called her 'Jo'. Once she learned Hebrew though, she found that Livvy, what could be used as a nickname for 'Liv', means 'my heart'. That's why Jenny called her 'Livvy'," Ziva gave them the full explanation and Tony looked smug. Over Ziva's talk they had missed the director coming down to them.

"I just got a call from Mossad. After he left here Eli sent his protection details off and went looking for Joelle alone. They suspect he had arranged a meeting with her," Vance said.

"Then she is dead now," Ziva said and closed her eyes as the defeat washed over her.

"I don't know about that, Miss David, but your father hasn't been back since. His cell phone was switched off and the tracking device he wore for his own safety was found in an empty park. It seems like he found her. He is missing," Leon Vance said.

_Damn it_, he thought and slammed his fist down on his desk. There was no way anymore this could end well for her now. They were too late.

**TBC**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Dear John**

They kept working away without any new evidence. It seemed like desperation was the motor that kept them going. From time to time he checked on Ziva with a single look. She tried not to let it show, but she was clearly effected by the fact that her father was either out killing Jenny's daughter or was getting killed himself. Whenever she thought no one was looking the conflicted emotions were written all over her face.

"DiNozzo, take Ziva and get us something to eat. Looks like we'll spend all night here," he told his senior field agent, who seemed surprised by the request. When their eyes met he did understand though and just nodded.

"Come on, Ziva, you heard the boss man," Tony said and pulled her off her chair and handed her her jacket. "Anything specific, boss? Chinese? Italian? Mexican?" he asked.

"I don't care. Just not any of that veggi/soy crap," he replied. Ziva just followed Tony without even asking him for the car keys. That said a lot.

"Boss, I just found the last trace of Eli David's cell phone. They must have met right outside Noemi's apartment," McGee reported.

"And then?"

"Switched off and thrown away?" his agent speculated.

"When DiNozzo gets back you go with him and look for the phone," he instructed. "I'm going down to see if Abby has something new," he added.

"Ok," McGee replied, stunned that he had told for once where he was going.

* * *

"Gibbs, what are you doing here?" Abby asked when he came into her lab.

"Check if you got something new," he replied.

"I would have called you, Gibbs," she pointed out sadly. "I really wish I did have something," she sighed.

"Ziva already told us that Joelle's really good and Eli David agreed with her. Maybe he trained her a bit too well," he tried to say something uplifting.

"You know, he is Ziva's father and all, but after everything I know about him I can't say I would really mind if she kills him," Abby pouted.

"She's a sixteen year old child, Abs, she shouldn't kill anyone," he disagreed.

"Do you really think one of them is already dead?" she wanted to know.

"I don't know, Abby," he told her and looked around the room where the contents of Jenny's house were lying around, bagged and tagged. While Abby started typing again he looked for the first time at the things his team had brought in. They had been really thorough and he could only imagine that there'd be nothing left beside the mostly burned furniture. He picked up the bag with the shards of the perfume bottle and opened it, then took a deep breath.

He had once complimented Hollis for her choice of perfume, although he had known that it had been Jenny he had been smelling on her. Sometimes he still imagined he could smell her in the director's office or in the elevator. Once he had followed a woman through a supermarket because she had worn the same perfume, and felt like a crazy stalker afterwards. He could deal with memories if he chose willingly to pull them out. If they just sprang on him , however, that was a different story.

He closed the bag again before Abby could catch him and held the shards up against the light. Some were slightly red with Joelle's blood on them.

"Hey Abs, would it be possible to run a paternity test with that blood?" he asked her quietly and felt embarrassed that he had to ask. He'd always figured he'd know his kids and would see them grow up.

"I haven't tested it yet. I don't know how contaminated it is by the perfume and the water. And it's not a lot," she said. "But I could try." She waited for his reaction, but now that he had the option of actually getting to know the truth, he hesitated. "Do you want me to try?" she asked when he remained silent.

"Maybe later," he decided. He just wasn't ready yet. He placed the bag back on the table and looked through the others. Every book, every shampoo bottle was bagged. When he got to a bag with a letter in it, he halted and turned the bag over. He could only read the last few lines of the letter, but it didn't matter because he knew the rest by heart. It was the Dear John letter Jenny left in her jacket when she ended things between them. Today he suspected that she had ended things with him because she had known that she and her daughter had been in danger and didn't want to tell him. All those years he had believed that she had just wanted to climb the ladder in the agency faster. Or were those two events even linked? Maybe she had still done it for her career? Or had she wanted to climb faster so she'd have better ways of protecting her child?

He just wanted to place the letter back on the pile when he stopped again.

"Abby, where was this letter found?" he asked and held it up for her to see. She took a look at the number on the evidence bag and checked it on her list.

"In the bedroom, under her bed, hidden underneath a box with old photos," she informed him. "Why?"

"Because that letter shouldn't be in her house," he said and threw the bag back on the pile and hurried out. This was his Dear John letter and three weeks ago when he had last checked it had still been in his attic, together with all the other memories of Jenny.

* * *

When he reached his house he parked the car and took out his gun. He was here to look for evidence in his own house and he knew he shouldn't have come alone. But he was armed, he had slept in this house for weeks after she had obviously broken in and so far he was still alive. Seemed like if she had wanted to kill him she could have done it all along.

His door was locked, simply because he always locked it when he wasn't home. He unlocked it and went inside, left it unlocked behind him. He looked around in the dark, and wondered if he had really closed the door to the basement that morning. He couldn't remember. It wouldn't help if he got paranoid, he decided and reached out to switch on the lights when he smelled it. Jenny's scent was in the air. It wasn't her perfume, it was something he had thought he'd never smell again. It was a mixture of her shampoo, her body lotion and the scent of her skin and it was barely there.

His heart sped up and he unlocked safety on his gun, because now he was sure that he wasn't alone.

As quietly as possible he opened the door to the basement and walked down the first few steps so he could look down at his boat through the railing.

The light was on and beside the boat sat Eli David, tied to chair, a puddle of blood already surrounding him. His shirt was stained with it and he was barely conscious. Joelle was there, sitting on the floor a few feet away from her victim, her back resting against his boat. She looked deep in thought and was even tinier than he had expected. She reached over and injected David with something that made him snap out of his daze in an instant.

"Joelle, stop this, let me go," he begged her. "You know they will find and kill you."

"I don't care if I live or die, Eli. I haven't in a long time," she replied. Her voice had the same silky undertone to it as her mother's. Only it was younger and colder- lacked all emotions. "I'm dead inside anyway," she added more quietly and then stood up.

He shifted back, hiding in the darkness of the stairway. He knew that with everyone else he would just have taken the shot and ended this, but she was Jenny's daughter and he couldn't do it. He kept staring at her, comparing her to her mother in his mind .

"And now tell me why and I might let you go," she said to Eli David and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"I don't know what you are talking about," he replied.

"Why did you set her up? What did she do that you sold her name to those people?" Joelle went on and calmly walked over to his tool table and picked up another syringe.

"I never sold her name to anyone," David insisted. She came back, holding the syringe up in front of her and tapped it with a finger, so the air would get out.

"No, you got the old files from Kort and then sold Decker's name to the Black Rose, knowing it would get my mother killed as well as Gibbs," she told him, spitting his name out like it was poisonous.

"Your mother wasn't the good agent you picture her as, my child," David replied. " She left lose ends and one should never do that. You would never do that, you're too good." He even grinned a bit when he said it.

"Working for the decryption unit was fun, but you just couldn't leave it at that, could you? You made me a killer, just like Ziva. Only difference is that Ziva trusted you. I never did- not after what you did to your own kids." She injected him with some of the liquid, even though he tried to wiggle away. It took a few seconds then he was groaning in pain. "You should have never trained me so well. Maybe I would have never found out what you did," she said directly into his right ear and then stepped back. She walked back to the tool table and did something he couldn't quite make out, because from where he was sitting she shielded it with her body.

Eli David started screaming in pain and she only needed one hit against a spot on his neck to silence him and have him slip into unconsciousness.

"You should have never trained me," she told his limp form. "My mother told you not to do it." She walked around and looked down at the man who was slumped on the chair.

"And you shouldn't have come here alone tonight," she said in the same quiet voice and before he could react she had whirled around and threw a knife at him. He saw it coming, but couldn't react fast enough. For a second he was relieved when he realized it had only hit his lower thigh. Then he felt lightheaded and everything went black.

**TBC**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Jenny's words**

He felt nauseous and light headed when he woke up. At first he couldn't remember what had happened, but then everything came back to him. Slowly he opened his eyes and found himself lying on the floor of his basement, beside the puddle of Eli David's blood. He tried to sit up, but his arms didn't cooperate. He was surprised though that he wasn't bound, handcuffed, poisoned or dead.

On the third try he managed to partially sit up and saw Eli David still slumped in his chair, a dribble of blood running out of his mouth.

"Don't worry, Agent Gibbs, he's still alive. It's just his liver that's slowly shutting down," he heard Joelle say and looked straight ahead. She sat on his tool table, his gun in her hand pointed at him.

"I'm not worried about him, Joelle," he replied and tried to get rid of the sleepiness that surrounded his brain.

"Oh, so you know my name by now," she replied with a cynical smile.

"Why did your mother never tell me about you?" he asked her and hoped that he would at least get some answers before he would die.

"Because you let her down again and again," she replied without missing a beat.

"That's not true," he protested.

"After the first night you spent together? You told her you couldn't cheat on your wife, although that was compete bull. You had already cheated on her. Then you gave her France, but you could never really commit to her. You think she didn't notice that you were holding something back?"

"I loved your mother. I still do," he swore, simply because it was the truth.

"That's why you got married only four months after she left you?"

"You're too young to understand, Joelle," he replied tiredly. "Your mother and I should have had this conversation."

"But you never did and now she's dead, because she couldn't trust you," Joelle replied and he could see the sadness creep into her eyes.

"She should have trusted me and I wish she did. But I can't change the past anymore," he said and fully sat up. "So if you want to kill me for letting your mother down, then go ahead and do it. I lost too many people in my life for caring much about my own," he said and felt himself getting angry because of his helplessness. "But know that if she had just opened mouth one damn time and would have told me about you or her problems I would have helped her. If you're my daughter or not- it wouldn't have mattered."

"Your daughter? Your daughter is dead Agent Gibbs. Kelly died over a decade ago and I am nothing like her," she said with a smile that quivered slightly.

"You're Jen's daughter and that makes you family, no matter if we're related or not. Semper fi- you remember?" he asked her.

"You won't have another daughter, Jethro, because no matter how this ends here, either you or I will be dead." She pronounced his name the same way her mother had always done, putting emphasize on every letter.

He smiled at her when he noticed it and took a close look at her for the first time, this time not on a photo. She resembled Jenny a lot, but not as much as she had when she had been younger. Her hair was dark and slightly curly, falling loosely over her shoulders. And her green eyes that had reminded him so much of Jenny when he had first seen them, were wary, tired and so sad it made his heart ache. _She's like a child soldier_, he thought, thinking of the children that were abducted and trained as killers with unbelievable cruelty. They became the most cruel and heartless killers.

"What did he do to you?" he asked her, barely above a whisper, the smile gone. The weapon that she had lowered slightly during the silence was back, pointing at his head. He already thought she would fire when he heard a noise from the stairs and Joelle's eyes shortly left him, seeing whoever was standing on the stairs.

"Livvy!" there was a yell and Ziva stormed down into the basement, gun drawn.

"Emschi Ziva," the girl said without taking her eyes off him.

"Livvy la! Nasilt kalamat umik? " Ziva asked her in Arabic and he was shocked when he heard that Ziva put her gun down and kicked it away.

"Abadan. Kalimatha fi hulumi," she looked shocked by whatever Ziva had asked her.

"I'm here now, Livvy. Give me the weapon," Ziva pleaded and slowly moved in front of Gibbs, passing her father without so much as a second look.

"Emschi ya Ziva!" Joelle yelled, but Ziva didn't move, shielding him with her body.

"You don't want to do this, Livvy. You know. You know everything. You know who he is. You know what your mother always wanted. You know how much she loved him. Don't do it, habibi. Put the gun down," Ziva kept talking in English, because she had seen Toni and Mc Gee coming in, both with poised weapons that were pointed at the teenager.

Joelle stared at her, blinking against tears, her hands shaking. "You always trusted me and I've never let you down and neither did your mother. Imagine what she would say now. What would Jenny tell you?" she went on and signalized her two colleagues to stay back. "I couldn't care less if you kill my father, for all I know, he deserves it. But I won't let you kill Gibbs. Jenny wouldn't want you to. In fact, if she were here I think she would throw one of her fits and yell at you. You remember those?" Ziva asked her and a small smile appeared on Joelle's face as she remembered her mother.

"I miss her so much, Ziva," she admitted and slowly lowered the gun. They heard the click that meant safety was back on and Ziva moved forward, just as slowly, and took the gun from her, then lowered it to the ground and kicked it away, just like she had done with her own gun.

Joelle looked helpless and defeated at her friend, tears running in thick drops over her cheeks, while the others still just watched the exchange. Ziva cupped the girls face with her palms. "What did he do to you?" she asked with tears in her eyes now as well. "What has he done?" she asked again and they all knew she was talking about her father. Joelle fell into Ziva's arms, sobbing violently.

"He had her killed to get me...I didn't know what to do. I just miss her so much," she cried and Ziva held her while Tony and McGee helped him up. Tony then went to Eli David, while Tim helped him standing upright.

"He's still alive," he said when he had found a pulse.

"Where's the antidote?" he asked Joelle. She didn't react, but Ziva carefully pushed her away and asked the same question in Arabic. The girl pointed to the table and Ziva knew which one it was, took the syringe and injected her father, while Tony had gone out. When he came back he came with the guys from the ambulance, who must have waited outside.

"How did you find us?" he asked them, while Eli David was worked on, and Ziva held Jenny's daughter in her arms, not letting her go. She knew better than anyone else what the child had gone through and what had made her go out and kill her mother's murderers.

"Abby told us that you had just left and McGee managed to trace your cell phone, even though she switched it off."

"How?" he asked and lifted his jeans a bit, so the paramedic could take a look at the wound the knife had left.

"Secret service came out with a new program that once installed on a cell phone makes it possible to activate t any time, urn on the microphone or send texts from it, without that the owner notices," McGee told him. "And I installed it on all our NCIS phones, so we would always be able to trace those," the young agent said proudly.

"Good job, all," he said and then looked at Ziva and Joelle.

"What happens to her now, Gibbs?" Ziva asked him when she felt his eyes on them.

"We will take her to NCIS with us. She has a hell of a lot of explaining to do during interrogation," he replied.

"She's a child, Gibbs," Tony protested and he knew it was only because Ziva looked panicked.

"I know. Still I need to know everything before I can come up with a plan how to get her out of this mess," he said and accepted the help as McGee and Tony led him out of his basement.

**TBC**

Emschi- Go away

Livvy la! Nasilt kalamat umik?- Livvy, no! Did you forget your mother's words?

Abadan. Kalimatha fi hulumi- Never. Her words are in my dreams


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Never**

When they arrived the NCIS agency they didn't go up to the bullpen or the interrogation room, but went to Ducky instead. He had been called in again by them when they had driven back. Ziva had told him that Ducky should take some blood in case Joelle had laced the sedative with poison.

Of course, it would have been easier to just ask her, but ever since she had broken down in Ziva's arms she hadn't said a single word and simply stared blankly ahead. She needed a check up even more than he did.

"Jethro, you're alright?" the medical examiner asked his old friend worried when he stepped into the room, Tony, Ziva and Joelle following. McGee had gone to inform Abby and the director.

"I am," he nodded. "You can get the blood later. First check on her," he said and pointed to Joelle, who simply followed wherever Ziva went.

"Hello my dear, you must be Joelle. I am Dr. Mallard, but you can call me Ducky," he introduced himself but didn't get a reaction- she didn't even look at him. Ducky looked alarmed and pointed to one of the tables. "Can you sit down?" he asked her and again she kept staring ahead.

"Yallah, ya Livvy," Ziva said gently and led her to the table and helped her up on it. Tony followed and stayed close to Ziva, obviously not trusting the teenager. Ducky took a small flashlight and checked her responses, then checked her pulse. She kept still as long as he didn't touch her. When he did however she fought him off until Ziva held her and restrained her hands.

He watched the superficial exam Ducky did on the girl and he didn't like what he could gather from it.

"Jethro, she seems to be in shock. What happened?" Ducky asked him quietly and led him to the other side of the room so they wouldn't be overheard.

"She tortured Eli David nearly killed me. Ziva talked her into giving up. She started crying and has been like this ever since she stopped crying," he reported and looked worriedly at the girl. "I need her to talk, Duck. I need her interrogation as soon as possible," he added.

"Jethro, only looking at her I can already tell you that there is no way you can interrogate her any time soon. She is suffering from an acute stress reaction. She is in a daze, disoriented and is either withdrawn or agitated. Her fear of being touched makes me believe she also had to endure some sort of abuse," Ducky listed.

"Rape?" he asked and could barely get the word over his lips.

"Possibly. I'll have to examine her further to confirm, but that won't be possible today."

"What can you do?" he asked him.

"I will give her a light sedative to calm her down and make her sleep, Hopefully she will be more responsive when she wakes up," his friend destroyed his last hope of speaking with her that day. The doctor went back to his patient and told Ziva what he intended to do. She just nodded, but had to intervene again when Joelle kept fighting off the syringe. She was becoming hysterical and started to hyperventilate and all he could do as stand idly by and watch it.

He wished she would trust him and he would be the one who could calm her down, but it just wasn't happening at this point.

In the end Ziva held her tight while Ducky quickly injected her with the tranquilizer.

"I had to use a stronger product than I originally intended to," he admitted when she fell asleep pretty much immediately.

"What are we gonna do with her?" Tony asked and still eyed her sleeping body warily.

"We can't let her go. She'll flee once she wakes up," he said rationally.

"You can't lock up a 16 year old girl who just suffered a breakdown, Jethro," Ducky told him angrily.

"I wasn't planning on doing that," he defended himself. "I think she should go home with Ziva, since she's the only one she won't kill the second she wakes up. McGee and Tony go with her, just in case," he ordered. "And I will go home and sleep off whatever she's given me," he muttered at last.

* * *

"How did the night go?" he asked DiNozzo the next morning when they met again. He felt better, more alert than the day before, even though he had a major headache and was slightly nauseous from the substance. He had even been able to sleep a bit, but knew it was still an effect of the drug she had given him.

"One hell of a night boss," Tony sighed tiredly . "Joelle kept waking up with nightmares, screaming the house down. She wouldn't let me touch her or calm her down and she even attacked Ziva at one point, when she was in kind of a daze," he reported. "Then the hospital called several times, because Ziva's father keeps asking for her now that he's awake, but she refuses to go in and see him."

"Where is she?"

"At Ducky's with Joelle. He needs to clear her before we can interrogate her," Tony replied. "How are you doing boss?"

"I'm fine, DiNozzo," he said and walked over to his desk. He plopped down in his chair and booted up his computer without thinking much about it. His thoughts were with Joelle. He was wondering what she was dreaming about. Were her own victims haunting her or was it her past that had caught up with her? And what was her past? What had she had to live through under Eli David's 'care'?

His cell phone rang and brought him out of his thoughts with a shrill ring.

"Gibbs," he answered it.

"Gibbs, I just ordered that Joelle will be brought into interrogation. FBI already called in and requested her transfer, which means we're running out of time. She needs to talk, as soon as possible," Vance told him and hung up again.

* * *

He was watching her through the glass in the interrogation room. She sat on the chair, shaking like a leave, her eyes fixed on some point on the wall. She was in no condition for an interrogation, but they needed answers so they could protect her.

"Jethro, I just told the director that I think it's outrageous that you are going to interrogate that poor child. At this point she probably won't even understand what you are asking her. She might confess everything or not say a word at all," Ducky was angry about the development. "She's been through hell, her whole body is covered with bruises and she only talked to me after I started telling her stories about her mother."

"How can we make it easier for her, Duck?" he asked, because for once he was at a loss. He wanted to go in there, hold her and tell her that everything would be alright, but he also knew that she would most likely attack him if he would even try.

"Send Ziva in. She's the only one she trusts," the doctor advised.

"Ziva's interview gets us nothing because her father was involved, which means that she is involved. Also she has a personal connection to her," he let him know. Ziva couldn't go in, as much as he wished she could.

"A female would be good, or someone with a connection to Jenny," Ducky pointed out.

"I can't go in, Ducky," he shook his head. "And Abby is not up to it." he thought about it. Depending on what the child would say Abby would most likely get even more hysterical than Joelle. What other options did he have? McGee was too socially awkward to do it, Vance too much director... that left him with DiNozzo. "Tony you're going in," he decided and his senior field agent looked surprised. "Trust your feeling on this." Tony nodded and walked out the door in observation only to enter the interrogation room a few seconds later. He quietly closed the door behind himself and didn't sit down immediately.

"Hey, Joelle, it's me Tony. They guy who stayed at Ziva's place this night. I'm gonna sit down now, ok?" he announced his actions and he knew that he didn't want to startle her. She looked so small and vulnerable that it was hard to imagine only a day before she had nearly killed him.

Joelle didn't react in any way to Tony's announcements and just kept staring at the wall. He looked at her for a few moments and leaned back in his chair.

"I'm not sure how much your mother told you about her work, but she sent me undercover once, to help her get the Frog, la Grenouille," Tony started like he was telling a tale. When he mentioned the Frog's name he got a reaction- Joelle looked at him. "Somehow he found out and my cover was blown. Just like my car. Oh, my car... I still miss it," he sighed overly dramatic.

"I was also the one who was assigned as your mother's protection detail the day she died," he admitted more quietly and he wondered for a second if he wanted her to hate him or kill him.

"With Ziva," Joelle said quietly and nodded. He was surprised when he heard her voice.

"Yes, with Ziva. But Ziva's crazy Ninja- skills told her that we should follow her. I said we shouldn't. And when we did it was too late. She was already dead when we arrived," Tony said and his whole expression showed how much it still affected him. "I told Jenny a thousand times already how sorry I am for that. I feel like I owe you an apology, too. I'm sorry, Joelle. I should have been there that day and I should have protected her." The last time Tony had shown such emotions had been when Ziva had been missing and he had insisted on avenging her death.

"It wasn't your fault," Joelle told him in a husky whisper after she had taken in his expression, had observed him just as much as they were observing her.

"Still, I'm sorry."

"She did it to save me and to save Gibbs. She wouldn't have let you risk your life as well," Joelle spoke again, her voice a bit stronger.

"She was an amazing woman," Tony smiled.

"She was a great mother," Joelle nodded, but didn't mirror the smile.

"I'll be damned, he got through to her with his confession," Ducky muttered next to him. "She knows he is really feeling remorse and even through all her own pain she still feels his. What a remarkable child."

"Joelle, we are trying to help you, but we need you to tell us what you know about her death." Tony said finally. She looked at the wall again before she focused back on Tony. She had obviously made her decision already and it seemed she had decided to trust him.

"My mother was on an operation years ago and she didn't finish it. She was supposed to kill the girlfriend of a Russian hit man, but she couldn't do it. Her partner shot the hit man and Decker provided them with covers. The girlfriend wanted revenge and when she had the money she spread the word that she would pay a lot of money for the names of her lover's killers," Joelle recounted mechanically, like a robot. "Eli had been collecting dirt on my mother ever since he found out I was good at decryption and my mother had forbidden him to train me. He paid Trent Kort for files on her black ops and stumbled over that operation and made the connection with the rumors he had heard about the reward on the names. He leaked Decker's name to the black Rose, knowing she'd sell it to Svetlana, which would lead her to my mother and Gibbs. He did not know about their code word, though. My mother might have died trying to save me, but Eli still got what he wanted. She was dead and he had me," she stopped and her eyes glazed over again.

"What about Hadar?" Tony asked her quickly before she would drift away again.

"I found the files about the whole operation on his computer. I thought he was behind it and it took me a while to find out that ultimately Eli was the one behind all of it," she replied, looking at him again.

"How did you find the files?"

"I tried to find a way to get out of there. Because of Ziva I knew that Eli never just lets anyone go. He sent her on a suicide mission and when that failed because you saved her, he tried to frame her. He never gives up, never," Joelle said desperately and shuddered. "For him his country comes first and he doesn't spare family or friends. "

"But why Gibbs? Your mother died trying to save him?" Tony asked the question they all still had no answer to.

"I didn't plan on it, but he was suddenly there and I remembered..." she trailed off. Her eyes darted through the room, looking anywhere but at Tony.

"What did you remember?"

"He's not the man my mother thought he was," Joelle replied quietly and looked at her hands. "She trusted him and he let her down... even after she was dead."

"Joelle, I don't understand it. You need to help me out here," Tony admitted. Again she looked him deep in the eyes, checking if he was being honest or just interested in her confessions.

"My mother was dying. After it was clear that I didn't inherit the disease she prepared everything. She was scared that I still wasn't save and so she left me code words to a bank account in Switzerland. She left me everything, except for her house," Joelle explained. "She didn't trust Eli, because I didn't trust him and she wanted me to be taken away from him when she was dead. She wrote a letter to my father explaining everything and told him that he should come and get me as soon as he got the letter. Then I could live in the house she had left him, just in case. She said he would come for me ," she went on and her eyes welled up remembering. " Eli David sent me on my first mission four weeks after mom's death. I was captured, and held for two days before they could save me. They beat us, wanted information... I was the only woman in the camp. " She said and the way she said it made it painfully clear what she meant by it. "After I had recovered he sent me out again ... It was his way of breaking me...He cared for his country at least... But my father never came. He never cared. He ignored her letter, burned my mother's house down and left me with Eli, knowing what he had done to Ziva, his own daughter," Joelle finished with tears running down her face. But her voice angry and her eyes full of hatred.

**TBC**


	13. Chapter 13

Originally I hadn't planned on going on after Gibbs found her and knows that she's his daughter. However now I feel like that's no point to end it and so I'll go on. I hope that's ok with you.

* * *

**Chapter 13: His**

The last time he had felt this sick had been when Mike Franks had told him about 9/11 when he had woken up from his coma. Back then he had thrown up his steak lunch into a nearby trash bin. This time his stomach was empty, but still it made him gag and vomit. He barely made it to the men's room and couldn't get into a stall anymore. The sink had to do.

When his stomach settled and there was not even fluid coming up anymore, his throat burned, his stomach hurt and he was shaking so hard he had to hold onto the edge of the sink for stability. He opened the tap and washed out his mouth the best he could. He let the water run and washed his face, using the green paper towels to dry it afterwards. When he looked into the mirror above the sink he could see his ashen face and his blood shot eyes.

She was his daughter. Joelle was his child and she hated him, because she thought he didn't care about her and had left her willingly in the hands of a man, he knew was going to get her killed at one point. His own flesh and blood had not only been lied to and trained for the secret service against her mother's will, she had also been forced to kill and to fight, had been captured, beaten, tortured and raped. By that time she had been only fourteen years old. His child. His daughter. And from her point of view it was all his fault.

He gagged again just thinking about it, wanted to cry, wanted to punch someone and scream. He felt like a caged animal suddenly and he didn't know what to do anymore. He gripped the sink and held his head down while he tried to think and fight the urge to drive to the hospital and put a bullet through Eli David's head.

_I never got a letter_, he thought again and again. This thought kept him from thinking about anything else_. I never got a letter_.

* * *

When he walked out of the bathroom after nearly half an hour he walked directly into the interrogation room, not even thinking about consulting Ducky first. She needed to know, and he needed to say it.

Both Tony and Joelle jumped up when the door slammed open and hit the wall. He must look like a mad man, but he didn't care. Joelle watched him, ready to fight if he attacked.

"Leave," he said to Tony, who seemed unsure if he should follow the request. "And turn the camera off," he remembered.

"Boss, I don't think..." Tony tried talking him out of it, but he was so furious at this point that he was sure he'd kill even his own agent if he tried getting in his way.

"I said leave!" he hollered, expecting Tony to flee. Instead he turned around to Joelle.

"It's ok, Ziva and I are on the other side. We won't let anything happen to you, ok?" he asked Joelle gently, while she still stared at him. She nodded quietly and seemed to have made a plan in her mind how to attack best. Hesitantly DiNozzo left and closed the door behind him.

He waited until the red blinking light of the camera disappeared and used the time to calm himself down a bit. Then he sat down, while Joelle was still standing, rooted to the same spot.

"I heard what happened," he started as calmly as he could. "And if I could I would kill this bastard myself," he said, getting upset again. Joelle just watched him, her face expressionless. "I know you hate me," he went on, "and right now I hate myself, but you have to believe me: I never got any letter from Jenny! I didn't know, Joelle! I swear I didn't know," he said desperately and tried to catch her eyes. she held his look, the expression in her green eyes unreadable, even for him. "If I had had a clue, I would have come for you, no matter if you were my daughter or not. The fact alone that you're Jenny's daughter would have been enough for me to come and get you," he vowed. Still, no reaction. "There was no letter, she never told me and Ziva didn't say anything... there was no way I could have known," he said more to himself than to her, trying to convince himself that he really never had had a chance. If he hadn't pushed her away after their one night stand. If he had paid more attention when she had come back. If he had really talked to her for once while they were under cover. If he had searched for her when she had left him. If he had pushed her more when she had come back. If he had told her what he had felt for her. If he had pressured her when he had known something wasn't right with the Frog case. If... he was lost in the endless possibilities and missed opportunities. If he just hadn't been a stubborn ass for years he could have known. There was no excuse for that.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized and wasn't ashamed when he buried his face in his hands and let a few tears escape, before he was able to control himself again. Crying didn't change anything.

"She said she'd write you a letter with an explanation and where you could find me," Joelle insisted, still standing on the other side of the small room, as far away from him as possible.

"I never got a letter," he swore again. He looked her in the eyes once more, knowing from Ziva and Eli David that she had inherited his ability to detect lies miles away. "I never got a letter. I didn't know," he repeated slowly.

"She said she'd write it," she said again, quietly this time, resigned.

"I found a letter in her study, addressed to me. But she never got farther than "Dear Jethro"," he said, pulled his walled out of his jeans pocket and placed the letter on the table.

"She still didn't know how to tell you," Joelle whispered and picked up the letter, staring at her mother's handwriting on the otherwise blank page. "Oh, mom," she sighed deeply and started to cry.

"I will take care of you now. Nothing will ever happen to you again," he tried to calm her without touching her or reaching out for her, but his words only served to upset her even more.

"No! This is all your fault! With your stupid marriages and stupid prejudices against her. Do you know how much she loved you? There never was any other man in her life that meant anything to her! No matter how much you hurt her or how you insulted her, she always had hope that one day you would come and see her, tell her you loved her and she could finally tell you about me," Joelle yelled at him, crumbled the letter into a ball and threw it at him. "But you pushed her away, told her you didn't remember your past together only to give her a photo after wards. You flaunted your relationship with that woman in front of her eyes and you never cared enough to call her on the crap she pulled! You can read people, you knew she was sick, you knew she had a personal reason for hunting down La Grenouille and you did NOTHING to make her talk," she screamed.

"I tried, but she didn't talk to me. She lied to me, told me I was wrong. I am not a damn mind reader!" he yelled back and jumped off his chair, angry at Joelle and Jenny and the whole situation. "Your mother kept her mouth shut for thirteen years! There were enough opportunities when she could have told me about you." It was low to blame a dead woman, but he couldn't take any more beating. What he was doing to himself was already enough.

"She was too scared to tell you," Joelle was just as furious, if not even more so. Her eyes were full of fire now, her cheeks flushed, her curls jumping up and down around her face while she was yelling at him.

"What was she afraid of? There's nothing I could have done except for being a father."

"You barely cared for her without knowing about me... you would have hated her! You were not ready to be a father," she screamed.

"I _am_ a father! I just didn't know it," he sensed that this was going nowhere. Joelle's voice as already hoarse from all the crying and screaming she had done these last days and weeks.

"You are not. You're daughter is dead and I won't bring her back," Joelle said, now at a more normal volume. "I'm not Kelly and I will never be. I am not a daughter anymore. I am an assassin, and that's all I'll ever be," she added, her voice breaking as she spoke the words.

"You are your mother's daughter and you're my daughter. And none of what happened is your fault. We, the people who should have been protecting you, messed it up and you're the victim here. Nothing I will say or do is going to change that, but I won't let you down again," he said just as quietly.

"I killed six people, maybe seven if Eli won't make it. I will spend the rest of my life locked up. You can't help me." Her voice reached that cold, quiet, silky tone again. She was putting up her walls again and hid the emotions behind them. She reminded him a lot of Ziva in that moment, she did the same. However Ziva had learned to trust him, Joelle maybe never would. Maybe it was too late and she was already too damaged and still he refused to give up on her.

"I won't let that happen. You need help, not punishment," he replied and picked the crumbled letter off the floor, unfolded it, re-folded it neatly and put it back in his wallet. She stared at him again, the silence was back. "Ziva will be with you in a minute," he said and then left the room and closed the door behind him. He needed a plan, he needed to help her, her needed to fix her. He needed his daughter.

**TBC**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: The path**

"Jethro, you should not have yelled at her," Ducky said in a lecturing tone when he sought him out in the hallway in front of the interrogation room.

"I know, Duck, but this is all just so fucked up," he replied with all the frustration he felt and wasn't noticing his choice of words- not that he cared. Tona and Ziva came out of the observation room and looked equally shaken. "Ziva, can you stay with her? Maybe she wants to eat something. If she doesn't run away you can bring her down to the bullpen."

"I will ask her," she just replied and went into the interrogation room, Tony following her without waiting for any more instructions.

"What are you going to do now?" Ducky asked.

"Help her, keep her out of jail when I find a genius plan how," he replied just when Vance appeared.

"Gibbs, I'm going to pay Eli David a visit in the hospital and I want you to come with me," the director requested.

"If you want him to live that's not a good idea, Leon," he pointed out.

"Maybe I don't... I haven't decided yet. However I just read the results of DiNozzo's interrogation and I won't let the child pay for the mistakes of others." He sounded angry and convinced that he would get his way.

"I'm not taking responsibility for my actions," he pointed out again.

"If you want to save your child, you will follow my lead," Vance said and motioned with his head for him to follow him down the hallway for now.

* * *

"Why do you want me with you Leon?" he asked him when they rode to the hospital.

"Because I want Eli to look Joelle's father in the eye when he decides if he's going to help me or not," Vance replied. "And I need a security detail with me wherever I go," he added, although they both were aware that it wasn't important.

He remained silent, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he was Joelle's father.

"Hit you out of nowhere, huh?" Vance half smiled.

"I had a suspicion, but having it confirmed... I wish I'd have known," he replied and looked out the side window.

"I'm a father as well, Gibbs, you know that. I can't imagine what it must be like," he trailed off. "When I saw her at first this morning and heard the things she said she reminded me of Lee Wua Kai. Same abilities, equal training, same experiences, but she made a different choice," Leon said.

"She killed six people," Gibbs couldn't help but point out.

"To free herself and to get justice for her mother, not in revenge for what was done to her. She didn't kill you or me, DiNozzo or Ziva. She never wanted to kill, she wanted to end it," he explained.

"I don't understand why Jenny didn't write that letter. She knew she'd be dead by the time I'd get it, so what was she afraid of? She should have come to me the second she knew she was sick and should have told me. Would I have been angry? Hell yes, but I would have taken the next flight to Israel and gotten our daughter out of there," he ranted.

"Maybe she wrote the letter and someone made it disappear?" Vance suggested.

"You know something, Leon?" he asked and raised his eyebrows.

"No, I was just thinking that some people went to great lengths to get rid of Jenny to get to her daughter, they wouldn't just let you walk in and take her away."

"We're here, so I guess we can ask him," he replied and pointed out the window to the hospital.

"Leave your gun in the car, just in case," Vance ordered and for once he did follow an order. It was really safer for all of them.

* * *

"Ziva?" Eli David asked when he heard the door of his room opening and closing.

"No, it' s me, Eli," Vance introduced himself.

"Ziva won't come, she's with Joelle," he added, hoping it would hurt him. Eli David didn't reply, just closed his eyes again.

"Joelle told us some very interesting things today," Vance started and walked closer to the bed, while he stayed behind, afraid he would kill David with his bare hands if he gave one wrong answer. "Even more interesting is that she can prove it all. Really smart kid," Vance went on.

"Me lying here proves that she tried to kill me and murdered six other people," David replied with a lot of effort. He was still very weak and seemed to be in pain.

"Here's the deal: You insist that we charge her with murder and attempted murder. We will get her the best lawyers and make everything public. It will be in every newspaper from here to Timbuktu, that Mossad had the director of NCIS killed to get her thirteen year old daughter and sent her out on missions where she was tortured and raped. I will make sure they name you as often as possible. It might make the relations between our countries a bit more difficult, not to speak of the consequences for yourself," Vance started putting pressure on David.

"What do you want, Leon?" the Israeli asked.

"I want an agent named Joelle Levi, who is at least 25, made responsible for the murders. Sadly she will never be caught. Then I want you to hand over all documents you have concerning Joelle's real identity. She will be Joelle Liv Sheppard again, like she never disappeared, never lived in Israel," Leon Vance explained.

"I will make all the necessary arrangements," David nodded without even attempting to bargain.

"If you ever come near my daughter again,_ I_ will kill you. That's a promise," he spoke up for the first time.

"So you know now?" David asked and seemed a bit amused.

"Where is the letter Jenny wrote to me?" he asked him, he just needed to know.

"What letter agent Gibbs?" David asked innocently. He just snapped. In two strides he was beside the bed and had grabbed the collar of his hospital gown and had lifted him up.

"Where's the letter?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"I don't know about any letter," Eli replied again and this time he looked like he was actually telling the truth. He let go and the weak body of the Israeli dropped back on the mattress.

"How can you live with yourself? You sent a thirteen year old girl out on a mission where she's beaten and raped. If it weren't for Dinozzo your own daughter would be dead by now because you sent her on a suicide mission. What is wrong with you?" he spat out, simply because he really wanted answers to those questions.

"My goal always was that my grandchildren could live in their own country without fear and without a war. There are sacrifices that have to be made, no matter how cruel they might seem at first," David replied.

"Ever thought about the fact that your sixteen year old got blown up by a bomb, your son was killed because he was working against you and you nearly had your last remaining child killed? You will never have grandchildren, because you kill your own kids," he said. "I would give everything just to spend one last day with my daughter and you sent yours out to get raped, tortured and killed." He held his gaze and saw a flicker of remorse.

"You have your daughter now, Agent Gibbs. It might not be the one you just talked about, but you have your daughter," Eli said slowly. "And could you tell Ziva that I would like to see her?" he asked him then.

"No," he shook his head, "no, I won't do that. Because personally I want her as far away from you as possible. "

"I will tell her, Eli, but I won't order her. If she wants to come she'll know where to go," Vance interrupted them. "And we should leave Gibbs." Vance walked to the door and opened it, then held it open for him, signalizing him that it was really time to leave the ICU and get back to NICS.

"You might not believe me, Gibbs, but I love my Ziva, and I love Joelle like she's my daughter, too." David had the nerve to say.

"You stay away from them. If I have only so much as a suspicion that you're out to get them, hurt them or kill them again, I will find you," he swore again. "You're the biggest bastard I ever met," he spat and then hurried out the door, before he would do something he'd regret later.

"He is just as much a victim of the circumstances, Gibbs," Vance said after he had closed the door and followed him down the narrow hospital floors.

"Someone told me once, that who we are might be predetermined, but the path we follow is always of our own choosing. Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one," he replied, still hurrying angrily down towards the exit."Ziva knows that now, Joelle understands the concept but has a lot to learn, but Eli David... he went down that path willingly and he won't go back to change directions. For that he'd have to be forced or dead."

"That's probably the most I ever heard you say, Gibbs," Vance grinned, but nodded in agreement.

"Hope it didn't scare you," he replied and felt that he had a whole new appreciation for the guy.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Deal**

When they got back to the NCIS office in the afternoon, he felt lighter, simply because he knew that Joelle wouldn't go to jail for what she had done. It didn't mean she wouldn't need to face it, but simply that she wouldn't pay any more for the mistakes of others.

He found her sitting in the bullpen next to McGee, while Ziva and Tony were standing behind them, looking over their shoulders at the screen.

"No, you did it wrong," Joelle told McGee and typed something, he suspected she deleted something. "You have the one here, so you have the matrix in your head, you put the numbers from the right corner in, you solve the matrix that is hidden in here and then you get the password, which is..." she explained and looked expectantly at McGee. He thought long, then shook his head.

"I have no idea," he admitted.

"Ziva?" Joelle asked and turned her head to look at her friend.

"I was never good at decryption," Ziva couldn't solve it either.

"Twenty Five," Tony said suddenly and all the others looked at him in surprise.

"Very good, Agent DiNozzo," Joelle complimented with a slight nod and a smile that played around her mouth, but didn't reach her eyes. For a moment he felt like he was watching Ziva again when she had arrived at first. Tony smiled in victory and raised his arms in the air, celebrating.

"How did you do that?" Ziva asked and narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'm just good at math, Zee-vah," he grinned cheekily.

"Tony, you suck at math," McGee knew. "You need the calculator on your cell phone to check your receipts."

"There is no way you solved this," Ziva insisted and exchanged a look with McGee, wondering how Tony had done it.

"Whenever I solve a matrix I have to write it down and then solve it, underline the solution two times, like I learned at school. If I can't actually write it down, I fake write it with my finger onto the table. DiNozzo followed my fingers and read the solution from the table," Joelle finally told them and Tony gaped at her, surprised that she had caught him.

"I knew it! You cheated!" Ziva exclaimed, while McGee only snorted at the thought of Tony solving such a complex riddle.

"He did not cheat, Ziva, he was more observant that you two and got the job done. Sneaky man, this Anthony DiNozzo," Joelle let her friend know and the cheeky smile was back on Tony's face.

"Have to interrupt playtime, here. Joelle I need to talk to you," he spoke up for the first time and they all looked surprised to see him, except for his daughter who must have noticed him earlier.

"Where?" she only asked and got up, then straightened her shoulders. She was getting ready for another fight.

"My office?" he said and pointed to the elevator.

" Heard about that one," she muttered, but followed him anyway. He made a point out of locking his gun away in his desk before walking to the elevator.

"This ok?" he asked, not sure how she felt about being alone with him in the small room.

"Sure," she shrugged, but her eyes were darting through the elevator, taking in all buttons, switches and possible exits. He flipped the switch and the elevator stopped. They were alone.

"You won't need to flee, I have good news," he started. "Well, mostly," he admitted.

"Ok," she only said and looked at him.

"Vance and I had a talk with Eli David today," he said and saw how she stiffened when he mentioned the name of the Mossad director. "He agreed that Joelle Levi will be responsible for the murders, but sadly will never be found. Joelle Liv Sheppard however, will have never lived in Israel, but spent her last years at a boarding school in Switzerland, but is now back in the US," he let her know. She let out a long breath and seemed relieved.

"What's the bad news?" she asked him then.

"Why do you think there's bad news?" he asked back.

"There's always bad news," she knew.

"This time there's not. It's just news you might not particularly like," he shrugged. "Vance and I agreed on the drive here, that you will start seeing a psychologist for a psych evaluation and depending on his judgment you will attend therapy in whatever form he sees necessary."

"Ok," she said again, still looking at his with big eyes, waiting for the shoe to drop.

"You will also go back to school as soon as possible and finish your education," he went on and this time she let out an annoyed groan. "We are aware that you might be ahead in some subjects, but I guess you might have troubles in others. We will deal with that, too," he let her know. "Maybe, and I mean maybe, you can do an internship here at NCIS at the decryption unit, if you want and only when your stable enough," he pointed out.

"Ok," she accepted it.

"And you'll be staying with me," he told her finally and this one got a reaction. Her eyes got even larger and her cheeks flushed.

"What?" she asked loudly. "No!" she went on. "You said there were no bad news!" she exclaimed finally and he had to smile about that.

"That's not bad news, at least not for me. I'm your father and I want to get to know you without you sedating me or pointing a gun at my head," he said.

"Can't promise that," she muttered.

"Look, Joelle," he started and took a deep breath. "I know our past is all messed up and you will probably always hate me for it. But I think you know by now that it's not only my fault. Your mother messed up just as badly as I did and I say that, knowing I still love her." He paused for a moment. "But you're here now and you're my daughter and I want to help you and be there for you in all the ways I couldn't these last sixteen years. If you want to keep hating me then do that, as long as you're not trying to kill me again. But I won't leave you and I won't let you leave. You're stuck with me now, the way your mother originally wanted it, so deal with it."

"Ziva says you're like a father for her. The same goes for Tony, although he would never admit it," Joelle replied quietly. By those few words he knew that she and Ziva must have talked about him and maybe that was why she seemed suddenly so calm towards him. "My mother always said you're a good man and she never lied to me. We had a rule about lying, you know," she looked at him and tilted her head to the side.

"Yeah, I know. Rule seven: Always be specific when you lie," he knew.

"No, not your rules, Gibbs. Our own rule, rule number one: 'Never lie to each other. There are enough people out there who you are lying to and who are lying to you.'," she told him.

"That's a good rule," he acknowledged.

"I always know when people are lying, mom always said I got that from you. It would be fruitless lying to each other, don't you think?" she asked him.

"You're asking me to apply the rule for us as well?" he wanted clarification. He would probably say yes to anything at that moment, he knew, simply because he was so happy that his daughter was talking to him.

"Yes," she simply said, and seemed not to be one for long speeches either.

"Ok," he agreed.

"Just so you know: No white lies an no 'Not telling is not a lie' things either. You tell the truth, always, otherwise I won't be able to trust you," Joelle pointed out.

"Accepted," he told her.

"Deal," she said and he was surprised when she held out her hand to him.

"Deal," he said and shook her hand with a smile on his face. He couldn't help but tousle her hair when they pulled their hands back. "Glad to have you here now, kid," he said and started the elevator again.

When he stepped out of it when they had rode up to the bullpen again something black smashed into him and nearly chocked him to death.

"Oh god, you're still alive, I was so worried she would kill you in there. I mean, I know she's you daughter and all, but still, she's a ninja, like Ziva and she could kill you and you didn't have your weapon and she's so much younger than you are and with the drugs she gave you, you still don't have your full strength back and..." Abby went on and on, while she hugged him.

"Abbs, won't be alive for much longer if you suffocate me before," he told her and she loosened her hold on him. "Thanks, Abby," he said and hugged her back.

"Is she for reals?" Joelle, who was standing beside them, now with Ziva and Tony next to her, asked.

"Oh, yes, she's 'for reals'," Tony nodded. "That's Abby."

"Ah, the forensic scientist. Mom once told me she helped you dress for court. I didn't really get the problem back then..." Joelle trailed off and Abby turned around and looked at her for the first time.

"Wow, you really look like the director... former director I mean," she said and then hugged Joelle, who tensed. Just when Ziva wanted to intervene, scared Joelle would take down Abby, the girl relaxed though.

"I know. Except for my hair. Mom said my father had dark hair, not that one can really tell now," Joelle said with a side way glance at him. "She couldn't tell me where the curls come from," she shrugged.

"My mother had curly hair," he told her and they all slowly walked back to the desks.

"So, Boss, now that Joelle will stay, maybe you could tell us a bit more about Jenny and your story, I'm sure Joelle would like to hear it as well... being that you're her parents and all. When did you first meet her? And how did the two of you get together? Was it more in a Harry and Sally kind of way or more the Casablanca way?" Tony started asking questions, obviously thinking that now that Joelle was there and they were save for now he could get away with everything. He was wrong and just when they reached their desks a strong head slap shut him up. Just when he had been happy for a second, DiNozzo had to ruin it with his stupid questions.

"Sorry, boss, I got carried away," he apologized and rubbed the back of his head. He was glaring at him, until he heard something. It started quietly and then became louder. Joelle, sitting on the edge of Ziva's desk was snorting with laughter, looking at the two of them. He felt his chest fill with warmth at the sight of her smiling face and the sound of her laughter in his ears. They all stared at her, until Ziva started laughing as well. Her laughter was mixed with tears however and she hugged Joelle sideways to her and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"I'm so happy to hear you laugh again, Livvy. It's been way too long," she said quietly and he noticed that Tony had taken Ziva's hand and gave it a small squeeze, obviously ok with being the source of amusement.

"If you ever Gibbs- slap me, dad, I'm gonna slap you back," Joelle grinned at him and then laughed again. "Tony, you should see your face when he slaps you, you go all..." Joelle giggled, but he didn't really register anymore what she said.

She was still scared, she was still in desperate need of therapy and he was aware that they had a long way lying ahead of them on her route to recovery. Some of her wounds would heal, others wouldn't and they would have to deal with that.

However, right then she was save, she was healthy, she was alive and she was laughing.

And she had called him, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, dad- and it made him happy and this was all that counted at that moment.

**TBC**


End file.
